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Life insurance is a financial product that provides a lump-sum payment to designated beneficiaries upon the death of the insured person, through life insurance companies in Sri Lanka. This payment, known as the death benefit, can help cover funeral expenses, replace lost income, pay off debts, and provide financial security for loved ones left behind.

For self-employed individuals, life insurance in Sri Lanka is particularly important for several reasons:
· Income Replacement: Self-employed individuals often do not have the same safety nets as employees, such as employer-provided life insurance or pension plans. Life insurance can help replace lost income for their families if they pass away unexpectedly, ensuring that their loved ones are financially secure.
· Debt Coverage: Many self-employed people have loans or debts associated with their business, such as business loans, mortgages, or credit card debt. Life insurance can help cover these debts, preventing financial burdens from being passed on to their heirs.
· Business Continuity: For self-employed individuals who own businesses, life insurance can be crucial for business continuity. It can provide funds to cover expenses during a transition period or help buy out a deceased partner's share of the business, ensuring the smooth continuation of operations.
· Estate Planning: Life insurance proceeds can be used to pay estate taxes or other expenses associated with transferring assets to heirs. This can help preserve the value of the estate and ensure that assets are distributed according to the individual's wishes.

Life insurance, similar to retirement plans in Sri Lanka, provides peace of mind for self-employed individuals, knowing that their loved ones and businesses will be financially protected in the event of their death. It is a crucial component of financial planning for anyone who relies on their income to support themselves and their families.

How do I find the right life insurance policy for my needs?
Finding the right life insurance policy for your needs involves assessing your financial situation, understanding your goals, and comparing various insurance options. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you through the process:
· Assess Your Needs: Start by evaluating your financial obligations, including outstanding debts, mortgage, future expenses (such as college tuition for children), and the income replacement needs of your dependents. Consider how much coverage would be necessary to meet these needs if you were to pass away.
· Understand Types of Life Insurance: There are two primary types of life insurance: term life insurance and permanent life insurance. Term life insurance provides coverage for a specific period (e.g., 10, 20, or 30 years), while permanent life insurance (such as whole life or universal life) provides coverage for your entire life and includes a cash value component. Determine which type aligns best with your needs and preferences.
· Calculate Coverage Amount: Use online calculators or consult with a financial advisor to estimate the amount of coverage you need based on your financial obligations and goals.
· Compare Quotes: Get quotes from multiple insurance companies to compare premiums for the coverage amount you need. Consider factors such as the company's financial stability, reputation, and customer service.
· Review Policy Features: Pay attention to the features and riders offered by each policy, such as accelerated death benefits, guaranteed insurability options, and waiver of premium riders. These features can add flexibility and additional benefits to your policy.
· Check Underwriting Requirements: Understand the underwriting process for each insurance company, including medical exams, health questionnaires, and pre-existing conditions. Some companies may offer simplified or no-exam underwriting, which can be beneficial for certain individuals.
· Read the Fine Print: Carefully review the policy contract, including terms, conditions, exclusions, and any limitations. Make sure you understand how the policy works and what is covered.
· Consider Additional Riders: Depending on your needs, consider adding riders to your policy for additional coverage, such as accidental death benefit riders, critical illness riders, or disability income riders.
· Seek Professional Advice: If you are unsure about which policy is best for you, consider consulting with a licensed insurance agent or financial advisor who can provide personalised recommendations based on your financial situation and goals.
· Regularly Review Your Coverage: Life insurance needs can change over time due to factors such as marriage, the birth of children, career advancements, or changes in financial obligations. Review your coverage periodically to ensure it still aligns with your needs and make adjustments as necessary.

What should a life insurance policy include?
A comprehensive life insurance policy should include the following key components:
· Death Benefit: This is the primary component of a life insurance policy. It provides a lump-sum payment to the designated beneficiaries upon the death of the insured individual. The death benefit amount should be sufficient to meet the financial needs of the insured's dependents and cover outstanding debts, funeral expenses, and other obligations.
· Policy Term or Duration: For term life insurance policies, the policy will specify the coverage duration, such as 10, 20, or 30 years. Permanent life insurance policies provide coverage for the insured's entire life.
· Premiums: The policy will outline the amount and frequency of premium payments required to keep the policy in force. Premiums can be paid annually, semi-annually, quarterly, or monthly.
· Cash Value (for Permanent Policies): Permanent life insurance policies typically accumulate cash value over time, which can be accessed by the policyholder through loans or withdrawals. The policy should specify how the cash value grows and how it can be utilised.
· Riders and Optional Benefits: Policyholders can often add additional coverage or benefits to their life insurance policy through riders. Common riders include accelerated death benefit riders, which allow the policyholder to access a portion of the death benefit if diagnosed with a terminal illness, and waiver of premium riders, which waive premium payments if the insured becomes disabled.
· Coverage Exclusions and Limitations: The policy will outline any circumstances or events that are not covered by the insurance, such as suicide within a certain period after the policy is purchased or death resulting from illegal activities.
· Policy Renewal and Conversion Options: For term life insurance policies, the policy may include options for renewal or conversion to a permanent policy at the end of the term without the need for a medical exam.
· Policy Ownership and Beneficiary Designation: The policyholder has the right to designate the policy's owner and beneficiaries. The owner has control over the policy and can make changes to beneficiaries or coverage as needed.
· Grace Period: The policy should specify a grace period during which premium payments can be made after the due date without the policy lapsing.
· Policy Surrender and Lapse Provisions: The policy should outline the process and consequences of surrendering the policy or allowing it to lapse due to non-payment of premiums.

It is important to carefully review the terms and conditions of a life insurance policy before purchasing to ensure that it meets your needs and provides the necessary financial protection for you and your loved ones.

When credit card payments do not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks, it can lead to a variety of problems, such as inaccurate financial reporting, difficulty in reconciling bank statements, challenges in tracking and managing your business's cash flow, and potential compliance issues if the discrepancies are not addressed. Identifying and resolving QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction.
When credit card payments do not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks, it can lead to a variety of problems, such as inaccurate financial reporting, difficulty in reconciling bank statements, challenges in tracking and managing your business's cash flow, and potential compliance issues if the discrepancies are not addressed.
Identifying and resolving QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your financial records and ensuring the overall health of your business.

Reasons Behind Credit Card Payments Not Matching to Transactions:

There are several potential reasons why credit card payments may not match the corresponding transactions in QuickBooks. Some of the most common causes include:

• Incorrect or Incomplete Data Entry: Errors in manually entering credit card transactions, such as incorrect amounts, dates, or customer information, can lead to discrepancies between payments and transactions.
• Timing Differences: A mismatch can sometimes occur between the time a credit card payment is received and the time the corresponding transaction is recorded in QuickBooks.
• Merchant Account or Payment Gateway Issues: Problems with your credit card merchant account or payment gateway, such as delayed or missing payment notifications, can contribute to the discrepancy.
• Duplicate Transactions: Inadvertently recording the same credit card transaction multiple times can create a mismatch between payments and transactions.
• Voided or Refunded Transactions: Handling voided or refunded transactions incorrectly can also lead to discrepancies.

Understanding the potential causes of this issue is the first step in resolving the problem and ensuring the accuracy of your financial records.

Common Troubleshooting Steps for Resolving the Issue:

To address QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction issue, follow these common troubleshooting steps:

Checking for Transaction and Payment Discrepancies:

The first step in resolving the issue of credit card payments not matching the transactions is to thoroughly review your records and identify any discrepancies.
Start by carefully examining your credit card transactions in QuickBooks. Look for any inconsistencies in the following areas:

• Transaction Amounts: Verify that the amounts recorded for each credit card transaction match the actual amounts charged to your customers.
• Transaction Dates: Ensure that the dates associated with each credit card transaction are accurate and correspond to the actual dates of the transactions.
• Customer Information: Check that the customer names, addresses, and other relevant details are correctly entered for each transaction.

Next, reconcile your bank statements with the transactions recorded in QuickBooks. This process will help you identify missing or duplicate transactions and improperly recorded payments.
When reviewing your bank statements, pay close attention to the following:

• Credit Card Deposits: Verify that all credit card payments received are accurately recorded in your QuickBooks accounts.
• Timing Differences: Look for any timing differences between when a credit card payment was received and when the corresponding transaction was recorded in QuickBooks.
• Unmatched Transactions: Identify any credit card payments that do not have a corresponding transaction in QuickBooks.

By thoroughly checking your transaction and payment records for discrepancies, you'll be better equipped to identify the root cause of the issue and take the necessary steps to resolve it.

Reconciling Credit Card Payments in QuickBooks:

Regularly reconciling your credit card accounts in QuickBooks is a crucial step in ensuring that your credit card payments and transactions are properly matched and recorded.
To reconcile your credit card accounts in QuickBooks, follow these steps:

• Access the Reconcile page: From the QuickBooks home screen, navigate to the "Banking" menu and select "Reconcile."
• Select the credit card account: Choose the credit card account you want to reconcile from the list of available accounts.
• Enter the statement information: Input the statement date, ending balance, and any other relevant details from your credit card statement.
• Review and match transactions: Carefully review each transaction listed in the "Cleared Transactions" section and match them to the corresponding payments or deposits in your QuickBooks records.
• Resolve any discrepancies: If you encounter any discrepancies between the transactions and payments, take the necessary steps to resolve them, such as adjusting the transaction amounts or dates or reconciling any unmatched payments.
• Finish the reconciliation: Once you've matched all the transactions and resolved any discrepancies, click "Finish Now" to complete the reconciliation process.

By regularly reconciling your credit card accounts in QuickBooks, you can ensure that your financial records accurately reflect your credit card transactions and payments, making it easier to identify and resolve any discrepancies or issues like QuickBooks credit card processing not working.

Using Bank Feeds to Match Payments and Transactions:

Another effective way to address the issue of credit card payments not matching the transactions in QuickBooks is to utilize the bank feed feature. Bank feeds allow you to automatically import and match credit card payments to the corresponding transactions in your QuickBooks account.
To use bank feeds to match payments and transactions:

• Connect your credit card account: In QuickBooks, navigate to the "Banking" menu and select "Bank Feeds." Follow the on-screen instructions to connect your credit card account to QuickBooks.
• Review unmatched transactions: Once the bank feed is set up, QuickBooks will automatically import and match your credit card payments to the corresponding transactions. However, there may be some unmatched transactions that you'll need to review and manually match.
• Manually match unmatched transactions: For any unmatched transactions, review the details and match them to the correct payments or deposits in your QuickBooks records.
• Categorize and reconcile transactions: As you match the transactions, be sure to categorize them correctly and reconcile your credit card account to ensure that all payments and transactions are properly recorded.

Using the bank feed feature in QuickBooks can significantly streamline the process of matching credit card payments to transactions, reducing the risk of discrepancies and improving the accuracy of your financial records.

Utilizing QuickBooks Tools for Resolving the Issue:

QuickBooks offers a variety of built-in tools and features that can help you identify and resolve the issue of credit card payments not matching the transactions.
Some of the key QuickBooks tools you can use include:

• Find Transactions: The "Find Transactions" feature allows you to search for specific transactions based on various criteria, such as transaction type, date, amount, or customer information. This can be helpful in identifying any discrepancies between payments and transactions.
• Reconcile: As discussed earlier, the "Reconcile" feature is a powerful tool for matching credit card payments to the corresponding transactions in your QuickBooks records.
• Reports: QuickBooks provides a wide range of reports that can help you analyze your financial data and identify any discrepancies. Some useful reports for this issue include the "Undeposited Funds" report and the "Credit Card Charges" report.

By leveraging the various tools and features within QuickBooks, you can more effectively identify, investigate, and resolve the discrepancies between credit card payments and transactions, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of your financial records.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the issue of credit card payments not matching to transactions in QuickBooks can be a frustrating and time-consuming problem, but it is one that can be resolved with the right troubleshooting steps and the use of QuickBooks' powerful tools and features.
By following these tips and the troubleshooting steps outlined in this article, you can effectively resolve the QuickBooks credit card payments not matching to transaction and maintain the integrity of your financial records.
is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your financial records and ensuring the overall health of your business.

Embarking on your first move is an exhilarating journey filled with anticipation and perhaps a hint of nervousness. Whether you’re transitioning to a new city or simply relocating across town, the process of moving can be both exciting and overwhelming. At Premium Q Moving and Storage, we understand the challenges that first-time movers face, which is why we’ve compiled tips for first-time movers.

Tips for First-Time Movers:

• Plan Ahead:

Before diving into the moving process, take the time to create a detailed plan. Outline key tasks such as sorting through belongings, packing, hiring movers, and arranging logistics. Moreover, by establishing a timeline and checklist, you’ll ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

• Declutter and Organize:

Moving presents the perfect opportunity to declutter and streamline your belongings. Take inventory of your possessions and set aside items that you no longer need or use. Also, consider donating or selling these items to lighten your load and simplify the moving process.

• Invest in Quality Packing Supplies:

When it comes to packing, quality matters. Invest in sturdy boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, and other essential packing materials to safeguard your belongings during transit. Opt for environmentally friendly options whenever possible to minimize waste.

• Label and Organize Boxes:

To streamline the unpacking process, be diligent about labeling and organizing your boxes. Clearly mark each box with its contents and the room it belongs to, making it easier to identify essentials upon arrival at your new home. Additionally, consider color-coding or numbering boxes for added efficiency.

• Research Moving Companies:

Finding the right moving company can make all the difference in a successful move. Take the time to research reputable moving companies in your area, read reviews, and request quotes. Choose a company like Premium Q Moving and Storage that offers comprehensive services tailored to your needs.

• Take Care of Utilities and Change of Address:

Don’t forget to notify utility providers of your move and arrange for services to be transferred or disconnected as needed. Additionally, update your address with relevant parties such as banks, subscriptions, and government agencies to ensure a smooth transition.

• Stay Flexible and Stay Positive:

Despite meticulous planning, unexpected challenges may arise during the moving process. Additionally, stay flexible and maintain a positive attitude, knowing that bumps in the road are a normal part of the journey. Remember, at Premium Q Moving and Storage, we’re here to support you every step of the way.
Also, don’t forget to check it out: Tips for First-Time Home Buyers

Conclusion:

Embarking on your first move is a significant milestone filled with excitement and anticipation. By following these essential tips for first-time movers and enlisting the help of a trusted moving company like Premium Q Moving and Storage, you can navigate the process with confidence and ease. From meticulous planning to seamless execution, we’re here to ensure that your first move is a memorable and stress-free experience. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help make your first move a success.
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Subscribe now for a smoother, stress-free move and a brighter new chapter in your life. Let’s go beyond boxes together!

Welcome to the monthly Off-Topic and General Discussion section of the subreddit.
This area is primarily for non-fight and non-training discussion. This is where you talk about the funny, the feels, and the off-topic. If you are new to the subreddit and want to ask training questions please post in the No Stupid Questions weekly sticky. If you wish to post some on topic content to the front page of the subreddit please request flair from the mod team with an outline of what you'd like to post AFTER you've reviewed the sub rules.
--ModTeam

Hello everyone and hope you're all doing great,
I don't know if this fits here but I'll write it either way.
Context: i'm studying an MSc in civil engineering in the UK and want to do my dissertation in something related to structures and FEA, we recently had a deadline to submit a dissertation proposal which included our data collection method, literature review, analysis method etc...
I wanted to do FEA on fibre reinforced concrete, verify the results using a software : lusas specifically but i'm still open to others, make sure they're close enough to experimental data and then apply it to a more complex structure to see how worth is it to use.
After getting my proposal results I got 55%, which although is passing > 40% , I want to aim for a 1st, apparently according to the assessors, the subject is already widely researched and there's no gap in knowledge there which I understand.
this proposal was worth 20% so I'm not really bothered about the grade but it's a sign that my research subject is not good enough and I need to find something more specific.
So I was wondering if any of you guys has an idea of how I can find a gap in knowledge in something related to structures since it's my passion, it also has to be related to fibre reinforced concrete since that's my supervisor's specialty.
Thanks alot for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day

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Hello everyone. If you are looking for a distinction, then you are in the right place. I'm Crystal, a professional tutor and a superb academic writer with years of experience in English literature, Sociology, Business, Psychology, Nursing, Law and Social Sciences.
For assistance, please send detailed instructions to
Email: [writersbrave@gmail.com](mailto:writersbrave@gmail.com)
Discord: Highgradewriter#7788
What's app: +15203464074
My rate is from as low as $15 per page of quality work (Harvard / APA / MLA / OSCOLA, CHICAGO).
I graduated from Western Governors University with a bachelor's degree . I have gained progressive experience over the years in all types of Essays including admission Essays, Research Papers, Online Tests and Quizzes, Dissertations, Thesis Writing, Editing Services and Presentations. To ensure quality services, I review and check tasks at hand through Turnitin, Plag Scan and Grammarly elucidating authentic and unprecedented work.
To guarantee quality work, make payment only when satisfied with job order and have ensured all instructions are followed.
Please refer to my profile for sample work and a copy of my curriculum vitae(CV)
Long-Term partnership and reliability is guaranteed.
Thank you for your time.
Stay safe!

Hello everyone. If you are looking for a distinction, then you are in the right place. I'm Crystal, a professional tutor and a superb academic writer with years of experience in English literature, Sociology, Business, Psychology, Nursing, Law and Social Sciences.
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What's app: +15203464074
My rate is from as low as $15 per page of quality work (Harvard / APA / MLA / OSCOLA, CHICAGO).
I graduated from Western Governors University with a bachelor's degree . I have gained progressive experience over the years in all types of Essays including admission Essays, Research Papers, Online Tests and Quizzes, Dissertations, Thesis Writing, Editing Services and Presentations. To ensure quality services, I review and check tasks at hand through Turnitin, Plag Scan and Grammarly elucidating authentic and unprecedented work.
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I have a B.A. in English, B.S. in Biology, M.S. in biomedical sciences, and half a medical degree (dropped out of med school). And some medical research experience (did a literature review, research poster and presentation). I have a few writing projects from courses I took during my English B.A. but they're unrelated to medicine.
I recently started a gig as a technical writer (non-medical) for an IT company that I'm hoping will lead to opportunities. It's not the best thing ever but it was what I could find in a stitch and will be effective in honing my skills.
I would ideally like to end up working as a medical writer for pharma or a medical device company. Just wondering how to go about this. Any advice or feedback would be really helpful.

I have a B.A. in English, B.S. in Biology, M.S. in biomedical sciences, and half a medical degree (dropped out of med school). And some medical research experience (did a literature review, research poster and presentation). I have a few writing projects from courses I took during my English B.A. but they're unrelated to medicine.
I recently started a gig as a technical writer (non-medical) for an IT company that I'm hoping will lead to opportunities. I would ideally like to end up working as a medical writer for pharma or a medical device company. Just wondering how to go about this. Any advice or feedback would be really helpful.

The incidence and prevalence of i-MCAS may be increasing in many societies perhaps in parallel with other allergic and atopic conditions. With a current paucity of diagnostic biomarkers and robust clinical and scientific literature to support the pathology of mast cell activation in patients with the multi-symptom disorder, there is a lack of provider awareness of i-MCAS. Furthermore, the lay literature on the Internet, social media “experts”, and patient blogs are outpacing the science. We therefore have to remain faithful to the proposed diagnostic criteria for patients with suspected i-MCAS and continue to expand our research to be able to develop more objective biomarkers. Patients with i-MCAS do exist in your practice and we have outlined clinical management approaches that will undoubtedly help them.
https://med.virginia.edu/ginutrition/wp-content/uploads/sites/199/2020/06/Mast-Cell-Activation-Syndrome-June-2020.pdf

https://braverock.com/brian/strategy_type_bibliography.html
This is a big old laundry list of published quant papers and strategies. They're grouped by class and type.
It's a great literature review, to get an initial understanding of a certain strategy and for specific examples for each category.
Once you feel well-read, replicating and extending any one of these papers is good practice and also would probably be a great summer project, internship project, or thesis. Have fun reading

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This article, predicting much greater coal consumption by China and India than the IEA, Yakov & Partners, and Sinopec, was posted to this subreddit before, but there was little discussion of the actual arguments made by the "superforecasters", probably because they were hidden away in the graphs showing the predictions. Here they are (each forecaster gave six predictions in total, covering China and India's coal consumption in 2026, 2030, and 2035) - do you think they are good arguments?
From forecaster predicting 4,963 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

The main two questions dominating this forecast for me are general predictions of peak coal and the relationship between coal consumption and economic growth (coupled with forecasts of Chinese growth over the next years). First, China’s ‘Dual Carbon’ goals set out by Xi Jinping in 2020 outline peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Of course, coal is not the only contributor to Chinese carbon emissions, and this goal might be unrealistic given the growth of coal consumption since 2020. SINOPEC on the other hand puts the predicted date of peak coal at around 2025 (https://daxtromn-power.com/blogs/news/sinopec-forecasts-peak-in-china's-coal-consumption-around-2025). This prediction is somewhat more optimistic than that of some recent academic research using optimized grey model that predicts that “coal consumption in China and India will continue to rise over the next five years” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544221030358), though this builds on 2020 data and as such may be consistent with the former. This rough peak date of mid-to-late 2020s is also supported by academic work using system dynamics analysis putting the predicted time at 2027 (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.974763/full). Second, there has been quite some discussion in the academic literature on the relationship between economic growth and coal consumption in China. One strand of work looks at intensity effects (investigating how changes in coal consumption may result from changes in coal intensity, i.e., the amount of coal units used per economics output). This paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479721019745?casa_token=JBy-zAuscS4AAAAA:2XeKft1HtziolUxdhzkDz0nr8B0ecjJvdCALy-G2IpXJmlZ1J1zfKv7kuIdGWy3KIIKoE3Rv2cA#bib55) finds a positive effect, suggesting that improvements in efficiency and secondary industries can reduce overall coal intensity. However, economic growth remains the main driver of this, even though the relationship between economic growth and coal consumption has weakened (though proper decoupling has not happened). This result has also been found by other papers (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522000374?casa_token=ur4I9csWPxMAAAAA:XvDnZS6_X4l6EF3B_cUEFbj37kZI-yj05pZekJnnRrpOpaQ8oJir3EQyqQXWLHavl3USIpYsMtE). Overall, these results point to a consistent relationship between economic growth and coal consumption, though this relationship is expected to weaken as the Chinese economy advances technologically. Putting these together as a baseline with respect to our forecasting questions, I agree with the rough picture that peak coal before 2026 is very unlikely (10% at best). I also think that the academic results with respect to the weak(ening) relationship between economic growth and coal consumption are likely to hold. However, I do anticipate Chinese growth to slow down substantially over the next years, with there already being quite substantial heterogeneity as to their current growth rate, reported to be over 5%, though unlikely to actually be that. Additionally, while renewable energy is unlikely to replace coal consumption any time soon, their status in the Chinese economy is likely to have substantial effects from around 2030 onwards (both in terms of price pressures in the context of solar but also with respect to the country’s image and the subsequent subsidies afforded to the renewable sector and away from coal as citizen’s concerns for clean air are likely to become more relevant as the rest of the economy advances). For 2026, I anticipate a slowing but consistent growth to about 4950 Mt, with a substantially heavier right tail.

From forecaster predicting 5,020 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

IEA's consistent under forecast factor of 2.8%, as mentioned by my fellow forecaster, would yield a corrected forecast of 4,927 MT for 2026. The slow down in the Chinese economy, particularly in the housing market, should lead to a slow-down in demand. This is likely to be offset by an increase in military production and a post-Covid peak return to normalcy of movement within China. Paradoxically the move towards EVs will diminish gas consumption at the cost of electric energy demand, partially driven by coal. China plans to increase their coal plant capacity by ~1/3. Why would they do this is if they do not expect a significant increase in demand? The current average age of coal plants in China is 13 years. They already have this sunk cost, with nearly 3 decades of life remaining in the existing capacity. Anything short of massive calamitous events that force a political recalculation, are unlikely to see a short term decrease in coal consumption. Green energy capacity is increasing, but not at a rate to cover the additional demand for energy, especially in a warming world. https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-trackedashboard/

From forecaster predicting 5,022 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

In forecasting it's actually a good thing if you can find a person or institution that is consistently wrong. Fivethirtyeight had this insight with certain pollsters, finding that if they adjusted for partisan biases, the pollsters became a lot more reliable.The China 2026 coal forecast is therefore fairly straightforward, since I found that the past forecasting errors on the part of IEA offer a remarkable consistency of about 2.8 percentage points per year. My guess is this is basically the optimism bias that one finds in forecasting, often by people who admittedly have good intentions. Using that method a floor would then be 4,927 Mt for 2026, assuming no errors for IEA's 2023 estimate. Assuming that error does apply for 2023 (which would have been a winning strategy in past years) gets me to 5,022 for a 2026 median, which is higher than the IEA's 4,535 Mt. Then I have the right tail be longer than the left, given the experience of the past couple years. So overall the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for these years should come to around 2.6%. This makes intuitive sense, since the long-term CAGR through 2017 was 2.7%, with an acceleration to 4.0% for the 2017-22 period.
According to globalenergymonitor.org, China has maintained a pace of issuing permits for 2 new coal power plants per week. Some of this is simply an offsetting of decommissioned old plants of course--according to the coal plant tracker dashboard, 2023 is looking like 136 GW in new construction for China but 120 GW of retirements. With China's energy consumption growing by 6% in 2023 according to IEA though, coal will remain part of the mix for the time being.
On the steel side of the ledger (this being the other major use of coal, to heat the metal), China's steel industry has been in the doldrums for a few years now, with only a slight increase in production in 2023. There are no expectations by the steel industry of higher profits or more stimulus coming (source). So because of all that, I don't expect much increase in coal consumption from that sector.
Finally, it's notable that ten years ago the forecasts for the peak were for around 2020, including by the Chinese government (see pages 3 and 45 here) At the moment Sinopec forecasts peak coal consumption for China to come in 2025. I would probably go more for the latter part of this decade given the momentums, but I think the key point is that the clean energy takeover in China has indeed been pushed back 5 to 10 years.

From forecaster predicting 5,038 Mt of coal consumption in China in 2026

As another forecaster points out, China has been on a bit of a coal burning spree recently: the pre-2017 CAGR was 2.7%, but it accelerated to 4.0% for the 2017-22 period. This was partly due to power shortages that some provinces of China experienced, particularly in 2021 and 2022. Meanwhile, poor rainfall in recent years combined with a decline in Chinese dam projects since 2015 meant that hydropower was unable to pick up the slack; as a percentage of electricity production, hydro actually fell from around 19% in 2014 to less than 16% in 2022, and utilisation was close to historic lows. Rainfall picked up in the summer of 2023, however, and this may stay high in 2024, which is one reason we might expect coal consumption not to increase too sharply and why the IEA might even be right that coal consumption will have peaked in 2023.
How did China increase its coal power generation? According to Global Energy Monitor’s Global Coal Plant Tracker, they revived previously cancelled and shelved projects and approved brand new ones. In 2023, it added almost 50,000 MW and retired less than 4,000 MW.
But just as renewable electricity capacity is not the same as renewable electricity generation (it makes up over 50% of China’s capacity but only about 26% of its generation), additional coal capacity doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be drawn on, as Hannah Ritchie points out. Indeed, coal consumption and coal-based electricity generation did fall around 2014 despite much more coal power capacity having been added than retired in the years preceding this. If the increase in renewable generation can outpace the increase in power demand for the first time, this could happen again.
That said, if Ritchie is right about coal plants being uneconomical (China is offering coal producers capacity payments to keep their plants online even when they’re not being used), this is arguably a sign that China is serious about utilising them at the expense of solar and wind (which have their own economic problems, absent good storage capabilities). Since power plant approvals are now decentralised, provincial leaders may judge that it’s better for the economy as a whole to avoid blackouts of a few hours even if coal plants become stranded assets. Most of the countries (Switzerland, France, Sweden, Iceland) that have managed to create a low-carbon or zero-carbon electricity system rely heavily on some mix of n***, hydro and geothermal, and China is only planning on producing 10% of its electricity from n*** by 2035.
Also, the IEA has been too optimistic in the past as a colleague notes, and I’d give more credence to the analyses cited by my colleagues suggesting that coal consumption will peak later this decade (although some these analyses seem to think coal consumption will ‘peak’ at a figure lower than the 2022 and 2023 figures, which is a bit confusing). Finally, a conflict between China and Taiwan could cause demand to stagnate or fall, as could a lacklustre economy (which will also impact steel production). On the other hand, it could cause China to ramp up coal production.
Overall, I don’t think coal consumption in 2026 will be as high as some forecasters are predicting (based on an extrapolation of recent trends), because hydropower may regress toward mean utilisation levels after falling close to historical lows during the drought in 2021 and 2022, while additional solar and wind capacity (even with low utilisation rates) may finally start to shoulder a significant part of the extra demand. However, I don’t think it will be as low as the IEA is projecting because solar and wind still have limitations (as discussed by others), n****** and hydropower probably aren’t sufficient for coal to peak in 2023, and the IEA has historically underestimated coal consumption. A peak in the latter half of the decade appears more plausible, especially as this is what China itself is signalling will happen.

continued in comments

To clarify, I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

This is my attempt at a re-submission due to some misunderstandings on the first attempt. I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.