pechebeche-deactivated20201125
If R2-D2’s translations were like RVB’S Lopez’s translations.
theimaginaryslimshady
Obi-wan has been surrounded by people for as long as he can remember. As a child he was brought to the Jedi Temple where he was hardly ever alone. There were younglings, knights, and masters everywhere, minds and hearts open and kind. Even before then, he has the vaguest sensations of love and being loved, a family, perhaps a brother, moving from one circle of embrace to another.
Any moment of solitude was deliberately sought out. A few hours of meditation here and there to focus and realign oneself before returning to the fold.
During the war, there is less time spent in the bright halls of the Temple surrounded by his family, but his family has grown instead. He spends his time on starships and on battlefields. It’s harder than ever to carve out time to be alone. Someone always needs something and he is always ready to help.
Obi-wan never envisioned a life alone. He exists in harmony with the force that connects him to all living things in the galaxy. Community is how he understands the world around him.
Tattooine is endlessly lonely. There are days he doesn’t speak to anyone, doesn’t see anyone if he doesn’t go to work. Trips to town are few and far between in order to keep a low profile. Even the sand people hardly ever make their way out into the hills to bother him. It’s just him and the sand and the hot desert suns. Sometimes the ghosts and the dreams are a relief, just to have someone around to haunt him.
This post inspired by chapter 3 of Abyssus Abyssum Invocat by platinum_firebird. The line “ “I’m alone,” he whispered. “ during Obi-wan’s force vision really got to me
Alrighty, here’s the @tolkienrsb fic written by the wonderful platinum_firebird on AO3, inspired by my painting of Elrond! You can read the story here :DDD
Fic and art rating: Gen
Warnings: None apply
Relationships: Elrond & Maedros, Elrond & Maglor, Elrond & OCs
Characters: Elrond, Maedros, Maglor, Erestor, and OCs
Word count: 15,969
Elrond is a budding scholar fascinated by history and medicine (among many, many other topics), but the library at Amon Ereb always leaves something to be desired.
After an inspiring encounter with the castle’s bards, Maglor encourages him to begin his own scholarly undertaking – a book recording the histories of all Amon Ereb’s people, no matter their station or background.
JEDI: FALLEN ORDER APPRECIATION WEEK Day 5: favourite dynamic
It is nice to have an ally. — Nightsister Merrin Yeah, I like the sound of that. — Cal Kestis
Take Earth Back
check out my patreon for psd, step by step, print resolution
ARCANE: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS (2021) by Riot Games and Fortiche Production Happy 1-year anniversary!
Title: On Autumn's Pyre Rating: M Warnings: Canonical Major Character Death, Sibling Incest Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Threesome - M/M/M, Politics, Just Lots And Lots Of Politics, Slow Burn, Seduction, Implied Sexual Content Relationships: Curufin/Celegorm/Finrod Characters: Curufin, Celegorm, Finrod Word Count: 26k Summary:
Immediately upon being accepted into Nargothrond, Celegorm and Curufin begin their manipulation of the city's political landscape, ever aiming for a more advantageous position for themselves and their people.
Their plan to seduce Finrod starts as nothing more than a political game - but none of them will escape being entangled in each other's tragedy.
Art by @ismeneee
Created for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Big Bang! @tolkienrsb
THIS IS IT THE FIC IS LIVE!!! AND IT'S SO, SO GOOD GO READ IT
Libby your writing skills are *godly* i am in awe,, it was an honor being partnered with you for this exchange ; u ; ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you so much!!!!!! I am still blown away by your beautiful art and working with you was really great! Your ideas was so so helpful and fully shaped that last chapter which is one of my favourite parts of the fic and one of the most fun parts to write :D Working with you was super fun in TRSB this year!!!
Clean sheets, amazing experience 10/10. Changing sheets, the worst 0/10. Why does something so good have to involve so much suffering
Aaah, yes. Awkward poses and lazy backgrounds :D
Celegorm and Curufin use all the tricks they know, but Maedhros smells their bullshit.
Dialogue from this post - The original blog who posted the text was “harnatano”, but that blog is deactivated.
Thinking about Aegnor and Andreth, and one thing that strikes me is how much their relationship seems rooted in the landscape around them.
Finrod tells Andreth that Aegnor will always remember “the morning in the hills of Dorthonion” - presumably a reference to their first meeting. More poignantly, he talks about their last encounter by Tarn Aeluin. This is the same Aeluin described in the Silmarillion: “with wild heaths about it, and all that land was pathless and untamed, for even in the days of the Long Peace none had dwelt there.” It’s a remote place, wild and rugged enough for Barahir and his men to hide out successfully for several years (and in fact, their hideout is only discovered because Sauron torments/tricks poor old Gorlim into giving it away). It’s an unlikely place for a lovers’ tryst, even a parting. It’s clearly a place well off the beaten track, yet it’s a key location in Aegnor and Andreth’s story. You’re left with the impression that their relationship, which seems to have been relatively secret, flourished in these remote, wild places, away from the eyes of their kin.
For me, this idea is reinforced by the impression given in the Athrabeth of Andreth being an active, even athletic woman. Finrod describes the young Andreth as a “maiden, brave and eager” (he describes Aegnor in similar terms - “swift and eager”), and though the forty-eight-year-old Andreth sees herself despondently as “old and lost”, one of the footnotes describes her as being “in full vigour” at the time of the Athrabeth. This idea of physical health and activeness also comes across when she speaks of her relationship with Aegnor: “I would not have troubled him, when my short youth was spent. I would not have hobbled as a hag after his bright feet, when I could no longer run beside him!” She’s speaking figuratively, of course, but the image it conjures up in my mind is of the two of them running together across those moors and highlands of Dorthonion.
And the physical landscape also has a role to play in the end of their relationship. Finrod claims that Aegnor ended it because he has no faith that the Siege of Angband will last indefinitely, and that in times of war “the Elves do not wed or bear child.” I’ve seen Aegnor get some flack for this, with people pointing out that other Elves seem to have no problem marrying and having children during the war-torn First Age.
However, to return to the Silmarillion, we’re told that as the Siege of Angband rolls on and Noldor and Men alike establish themselves in Beleriand, Fingolfin ponders another assault upon Angband: “But because the land was fair and their kingdoms wide, most of the Noldor were content with things as they were […] Among the chieftains of the Noldor Angrod and Aegnor alone were of like mind with the King; for they dwelt in regions whence Thangorodrim could be descried, and the threat of Morgoth was present to their thought.”
That passage alone makes sense of Aegnor’s motives. Most of the Noldor have actually grown complacent during the siege, but he’s one of the very few who hasn’t. He can’t - his fortresses are actually within sight of Thangorodrim, and the northern slopes of Dorthonion that he and Angrod rule are regarded as a key bulwark against any attack from Angband. It’s constantly there in his mind. Even setting aside the mortal/immortal divide, it’s only too easy to imagine what a shadow that would cast across his relationship with Andreth. Finrod reckons that Aegnor is too duty-bound to imagine abandoning his post and fleeing south to safer lands with Andreth; but equally, I think he’s too duty-bound to countenance the idea of marrying her and bringing her north to face the danger of the front line. (And the danger, as it turns out, is real - after all, he and Angrod are among the first casualties of the Bragollach.) Again, the landscape, and his awareness of their place in it, that influence Aegnor’s decision to call things off.
Taken altogether, Aegnor and Andreth and their story seem inextricably tied to the landscape they inhabit. So it is for the reader, and so it is for the characters themselves. Finrod suggests that Aegnor’s predominant memory is of “the morning in the hills of Dorthonion”, while Andreth conjures up an image of Aegnor, “bright and tall, with the wind in his hair,” suggesting that her abiding image of him, too, is set outside, with the wild hills of Dorthonion as a backdrop.
Fascinating to me how Dracula goes from this regular personified, well, person, into this sort of... Formless, malevolent disease; A faceless and nameless horror, not quite tangible and feeling more like a curse than a physical monster walking around. It’s surreal and even though we KNOW of Dracula, even if you knew nothing until you read the book, even if you read it in the proper order because Jonathan’s journal comes first; It’s still unsettling how Dracula has become this messed up, briefly glimpsed idea of an approaching malady. Like the inevitability of death and doctors and loved ones doing all they can to stave it off.
He almost doesn’t feel real within his own narrative, like maybe Dracula really is just Lucy’s sleep demon that her mind has made up to rationalize and explain this inexplicable condition of hers; Which just adds to her uncertainty and the dream-like surrealism of it all, that gaslights Lucy into not talking about what happened and causes her to forget. Dracula’s like a cryptid you barely catch in the dark with shining red eyes, you can’t quite pin him down because he’s so undefined and thus protean. He’s like a hallucination, an omen of death; A mere visualization of a much deeper and untouchable force, given a face to mock victims with, existing only within the mind because the illness exists in the body like a parasite. It’s creepy.
This is so fascinating to me because we so often hear “don’t show or explain the monster too much, it’ll lessen the horror,” but Dracula started with having him a constant presence narrating every detail. But then it pulls him behind a screen, and that eerie unknowable quality of more obscure horror manages to build despite us first knowing him as this weird goofy old man who zooms around doing housework.
In retrospect, it almost forms its own sort of horror: of this malignant force simply wearing the face of a person when it suits him, and as the mask disappears so does the tangibility.
I can hear the children calling If I’m good, will you come back? If I’m good, will you come back? If I’m good, will you come back to us?
― Two Minutes (The Amazing Devil)
THIS IS EVERY INSTANCE WHERE THE JEDI TALK ABOUT ATTACHMENT IN THE MOVIES AND TV SERIES, which paint a very clear, consistent picture of just what attachment meants within the Jedi Order and Star Wars itself. It’s about how attachment isn’t the same thing as love or connection or feelings, but specifically about the inability to let go of someone when its time, that the fear of their loss is so great you would give up a thousand lives to save just the one because you cannot live without them, because you are afraid. George Lucas has been very consistently, explicitly clear about this as well, that attachment is always tied possession, fear, greed, the desire to control people, the dark side, and the inability to accept that life is transitory, that you can’t hold on to people, you can’t keep them, you can’t possess them. Attachment is fear, greed, the willingness to make a deal with the devil to save one person, no matter how many other lives it costs. But, setting aside word of god commentary, the above is still the way the term is used within the text itself. That doesn’t mean it’s not difficult! Feelings are complicated, messy things and it’s not that any personal desire is attachment, it’s not that moments of fear are the same as attachment, it’s the willingness to act on those feelings in ways that get a lot of people hurt, it’s about using the Force for selfish desires, because the Force is your emotions, if you do something for a selfish reason, if you do something based on fear, that is a step towards the dark side. Context for each of the scenes: Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: “Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi’s life.” Anakin is explaining basic Jedi worldbuilding to Padme and the audience, he directly ties attachment to possession (as Lucas says, this is about wanting to possess a person: “[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them.“), instead explaining to her that compassion is central to their lives. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - “Downfall of a Droid”: “I could take a squad out there, track him down.” "Anakin, it’s only a droid. You know attachment is not acceptable for a Jedi.” The context of this scene is that Anakin is willing to not only put his own life on the line, but that he would put the clones’ lives and Ahsoka’s life on the line, in the middle of a war where they’re facing a weapon that is killing them in droves, to go find his droid. This is the only time that Obi-Wan objects to Anakin’s affection for the droid throughout the entire series, when it’s about risking others’ lives to save Anakin’s favorite droid. Any other time Anakin favors Artoo, Obi-Wan just reacts with fond annoyance. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - “Jedi Crash”: “I can still sense your worry for Anakin, your attachment to him." "It’s just… I get so confused sometimes. It’s forbidden for Jedi to form attachments, yet we are supposed to be compassionate." "It is nothing to be ashamed of, Ahsoka. I went through the same process when I was your age with my own master.” “You were right all along, Master Secura." "About what?" "If I had stayed with Anakin, we probably wouldn’t have found this village in time to save him.” The context here is that Ahsoka’s desire to stay with Anakin would have potentially cost all of them their lives, because she couldn’t do anything more for him other than worry over him, but they needed to find help because he was going to die without it. Ahsoka’s desire to be compassionate to her master is conflicting with her duty to help in a way that takes her away from him, and this is something young Jedi have to find the balance of, and that’s what the show is explaining to the audience. It’s not always an easy path to find, sometimes Jedi are going to struggle with it, but Aayla was right and Ahsoka understands that at the end, along with the audience, that staying with him out of Ahsoka’s personal desire to do so against her duty to go get help, would have cost Anakin his life. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - “Brain Invaders”: “Ahsoka, it’s your duty to save as many lives as you can. Barriss knew you could save thousands if the worms were destroyed. Which she thought meant destroying her, too. But you did the right thing. You knew the freezing cold would kill the worms. Letting go of our attachments is a difficult struggle for all of us.“ Barriss posed a very explicit danger to anyone she would come across, just as the clones had infected other clones and then Barriss herself, she would go on to do the same. While Ahsoka found a way around it this time, the conflict here is that Ahsoka was weighing her personal desire to not have her friend die versus the thousands of people her friend might go on to hurt. Attachment isn’t just that Ahsoka cared about Barriss, but that conflict of saving her life at the cost of others’ lives, because Ahsoka herself wanted it, because she was afraid to live without her friend. The opening title card quote for this episode is, “Attachment is not compassion.” Star Wars: The Clone Wars - "Voyage of Temptation”: "My duty as a Jedi demanded I be elsewhere." "Demanded? But it’s obvious you had feelings for her. Surely that would affect your decision." "It did. I live by the Jedi Code." "Of course. As Master Yoda says: ‘A Jedi must not form attachments.’” Letting go of attachments isn’t easy, there’s sadness and remorse in it often times! But the scene here is once again that Obi-Wan is telling Anakin that his duty asked him to be elsewhere and that’s when the conflict between his desire to stay for his own reasons and his duty as a Jedi made it an issue. Up to that point, we’re given no indication that it was any kind of issue (and in a later episode we’re told romantic feelings are natural according to the Jedi, they’re not forbidden), we see Jedi caring deeply about their friends and Masters and Padawans, it’s only when they’re willing to abandon their duty to save lives, the lives that are depending on them, that it becomes an issue. Had Obi-Wan been willing to let those people’s lives be in danger because he personally was unwilling to give up being with Satine, then that is what the problem would have been. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - “The Rise of Clovis”: "You’ve met Satine. You know I once harbored feelings for her. It’s not that we’re not allowed to have these feelings. It’s natural.” In this scene, it’s just after Anakin has beaten the crap out of Rush Clovis because he saw him kissing Padme and lost control, that it wasn’t about defending Padme, it was about his jealousy, even after the dust settles, he still believes she has feelings for Clovis. Anakin’s inability to trust her and his possessive jealousy are at a boiling point, he is unable to see her clearly, he is sliding into fearful, angry possession of her, which is when Obi-Wan comes to talk to him. In contrast, in “A Distant Echo”, Obi-Wan makes it clear he knows about Anakin and Padme, (”I hope you at least told Padme I said hello.”) but there’s no conversation about getting himself under control because Anakin is no longer at a boiling point with his feelings. The Jedi don’t forbid feelings, not even romantic feelings, while they do forbid attachment. They cannot be the same thing. (Though, they do say you can’t be in a committed relationship and be a Jedi, but that’s not the same thing.) Star Wars: The Clone Wars - “Front Runners”: “Ahsoka, remember what I told you about staying focused.” “I can’t help it, Master.” “I understand.” “You do?” “I do. But try to remember, always put purpose ahead of your feelings.“ This instance doesn’t directly mention the word attachment, but it’s same the context–Anakin’s advice is in line with everything else we see in the series, that it’s not that Ahsoka’s feelings are an issue, but that she can’t let them cloud her judgement, because the people of Onderon’s lives are on the line here. It’s the same as how Obi-Wan’s feelings for Satine weren’t an issue until there was a conflict with his duty, just as Anakin’s feelings for Padme in Attack of the Clones weren’t an issue, Obi-Wan saw them quite clearly, until they were in conflict with Anakin’s duty. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - "The Jedi Who Knew Too Much”: “Every time I think about this, I feel conflicted. It’s hard not to let feelings turn into attachment and pain.“ In this scene is that, with so many Jedi dying and the war being so hard on them, there’s a lot of fear and anger that they have to let go of, that Ahsoka and Barriss are coming back from a funeral for several Jedi and it’s a painful moment. Ahsoka compares it to the Brain Invaders storyline, “Like, when we were stuck inside the battle tank on Geonosis, it was hard not to be afraid. Still, you and I got past it. And I guess we’ll get past this.” The concept of attachment is again directly tied to fear and pain and suffering, that the solution (the one Anakin teaches her, that Ahsoka says he would say, “Our struggle as Jedi is to move past [these feelings of anger and fear].“) is to let go of them, to move past them–which is something Lucas has said multiple times is the theme of his movies. ”[The Jedi] trained more than anything else to understand the transitional nature of life, that things are constantly changing and you can’t hold on to anything. You can love things but you can’t be attached to them, You must be willing to let the flow of life and the flow of the Force move through your life, move through you. So that you can be compassionate and loving and caring, but not be possessive and grabbing and holding on to things and trying to keep things the way they are. Letting go is the central theme of the film.“ –George Lucas, Star Wars Archives 1999-2005 “The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works.“ –George Lucas, Star Wars Archives 1999-2005 Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: “Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed, that is.“ This is a scene where Anakin has become so afraid of losing Padme that he’s starting to go off the deep end about it, he’s butting up against his willingness to make a deal with the devil to save her from something he doesn’t even know for sure is going to happen. The story of Revenge of the Sith is that Anakin is so afraid to lose her that he will murder not just the adult Jedi and help Sidious create an Empire, but he will murder literal toddlers to save the person he wants to save. It is the very definition of attachment, of greed and fear. The above are every time that “attachment” is mentioned by a Jedi in the movies and the TV series, this is the entire context for what it means to the Jedi and to Star Wars. Does the term have other meanings in popular lexicon? Sure, but this one is closer to the Buddhist meaning and the way the characters speak of it, the context of their scenes and when they talk about it, the events that surround it, are all consistent with that attachment means a specific thing, that it’s synonymous with the fear of losing someone, so intense that you’re willing to sacrifice a thousand lives just to hold onto the one person. Attachment isn’t just harmful for the person who can’t let go, it’s something that costs thousands of people their lives. And the Jedi only bring it up in that context, when it’s about the conflict of their personal desires against people who are depending on them, we see that otherwise personal desires and relationships aren’t commented on. It’s only when a Jedi is willing to let people get hurt for their own desires that the Jedi talk about attachment.
HOT TAKE: Aayla Secura was being prepared to be a future Council member. In the scenes that aren’t direct Council chambers meetings, she’s frequently there with the other Jedi Masters to strategize, with a consistency that no other Jedi are (Luminara, for example, doesn’t get the same amount of appearances). Almost every scene is one where they could have easily added in another Jedi Council member, they could have added Shaak in for her in almost every scene, they could have added Saesee, they had models for both of those characters. And it’s not that she’s giving a mission report that’s unique to her, she’s just there, as a presence, consistently, as part of even the most sensitive missions. SO, I AM FULLY CONVINCED AAYLA SECURA WAS BEING PREPARED AS A FUTURE JEDI COUNCIL MEMBER AND I LOVE THAT FOR HER BECAUSE SHE ABSOLUTELY DESERVES IT, AAYLA IS KIND AND COMPASSIONATE AND GETS SHIT DONE AND TEACHES AHSOKA AND PUTS HER LIFE ON THE LINE FOR THE CLONES AND CARES DEEPLY ABOUT PEOPLE. /THIS IS AN AAYLA SECURA STAN ACCOUNT JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING
#I chose to believe#WHICH MAKES ANAKIN’S LITTLE TEMPER TANTRUM EXTRA HILARIOUS#they don’t want me on the council bc bc bc bc#Because you’re not ready#Aayla Secura#Who is slightly younger than you but Gets It#Is already being trained to be on the council#The problem isn’t your age#It’s you bestie (via @popupguidetothegalaxy) You know what really hurts about this? I think they were considering Anakin for a future Council position. As I was watching TCW and noticing Aayla in a bunch of these scenes, I also noticed that Anakin was included in several strategy meetings where he didn’t have to be, a lot of interaction with Council members where he was part of important meetings. Sure, a part of it was probably just Main Character Status, but it goes hand in hand with how often the Jedi Council members praised Anakin, especially for how much they valued his teaching Ahsoka.
That’s part of what makes Palpatine’s manipulations so extra insidious–he’s preying on that the Jedi were going to offer Anakin a position on the Council, just not until he was fully ready, not as soon as Anakin would have liked. If Anakin had held it together for awhile longer, until he was genuinely ready–and I maintain that he was on his way there–and if Palpatine hadn’t interferred, I think he would have been not just a Jedi Master, but offered a position on the Council for real. 😭😭😭