Normal FF16 fanart

Matching pieces of Barnabas & Sleipnir 💫

(They are so in love, I just know it)

Source

teetotailer

first incidence of good writing advice i've seen in 10+ years on this platform and it's in the notes of a mustelid wreaking absolute havoc in a german grocery store

maybe there never were any twin towers. like did u ever see them?

So I know all you kids are joking around but no, you’re not allowed to make jokes about this. No.

girl don’t you ship hockey players.

And baseball players 👍🏻

the fact that pro-monarchy arguments have degenerated, over the past few centuries, from “the king rules by divine right and is accountable to nobody but god”, to “uhm the royals generate a lot of income from tourism” will never stop being extremely funny to me

the monarchs… bad. but the castles? oh, the castles are positively lush with rats… 👅

Delete this account immediately.

When you pick up your fav card.

The devil is a twink named luke

- graffiti in the stormtrooper bathrooms

adhd is so funny it's like being possessed but with myself

me, desperately: can we please get something done?!

my inner demon, who is also me: IF YOU LIKE PIÑA COLADA

Ah, a classic.

Bodyguard

(via)

hate bluetooth headphones that talk. you are a machine you may NOT speak to me

when headphones beep sadly because their battery is low: oh you poor thing :( let me plug you in :(

when headphones say "battery low" in a human voice: Who Are You Stop Interrupting My Music

extended magical girl transformations are lovely and all, but there's something sort of romantic about a magical girl who transforms in an instantaneous flash of light.

imagine, a magical girl who transforms and detransforms when she's bored, or mildly stressed. sitting in a waiting room, flash, magical girl, flash, normal girl, flash, magical girl again, and so on. someone enters the room; flash, she's a mundane girl again. she realizes it's her enemy; flash, she's a magical girl again, and this time she has her sword.

In The Demon Girl Next Door, magical girl transformations actually take place in like hundredths of a second we just see a slowed down version

So you get

But you also get just

this tag is good and correct.

need a bi4bi t4t m/f pairing where the girl is a giant freak and not in the "cute manic pixie" way but in the "unethical experiments in my fucked up laboratory" way and the guy is a golden retriever who thinks he can fix her. and he brings her cute bento lunches and she's like "bradley shut up put on your fucking gloves and hold this possum down so i can graft these giant grasshopper legs to it"

your brain is unfathomably colossal

HE LEETLE FEETSYS

very glad to see this post reduced everyone else mental capacity for communication as well

@deadlydeamonflashmob

Never get tired of this little lad. He try so hard ^^

this lil guyyyyyyyyyyyy

AAAAAH THE WEE BATTY

foreman. babe. we’re at the bottom end of season 8. you have worked here for almost a decade. why are you still surprised there’s medical malpractice going on at the medical malpractice department that you, personally, used to do medical malpractice at

some of my fave tags on this post

god this show is truly bonkers isn’t it.

Wait that's definitely not Dungeons and Dragons. That's something you'd say about Dark Souls or Elden Ring.

Picnic with cows

(via)

“Tortoise opening the new science lab at the University of Lincoln”

(via)

"The prequels Jedi were corrupt," is something I've just stumbled upon, again.

How are they though? How? I want an example, a single example of corruption.

Do they take bribes? No they don't, not that we ever see. What would they even do with bribes? They don't pursue material wealth.

Do they influence politicians to gain power? Lol, Riyo Chuchi almost bosses Obi-Wan Kenobi, member of the High Council, around and only backs down because he makes a reasoned argument she agrees with. Padmé Amidala is literally the only politician we see getting influenced by a Jedi to a Jedi's benefit (*cough* Anakin diverting her from her duties *cough*). The Council systematically gets shut down when they try to get something from the Senate (like when they try to get Palpatine not to bring the Zillo beast to Coruscant - Obi-Wan and Padmé *do* ask Anakin to speak to Palpatine, and it does precisely nothing.)

Do they accept a corrupt leadership? In a sense but they don't benefit from it (since most of the Senate doesn't trust them, drafted them into a war they never wanted to be part of, and essentially forces them to send their teenagers into battle because they are stretched so thin) which makes all the difference. They don't enable the corrupt system because it profits them, they support it because the alternatives they have are worse (the Separatists during TCW, who are backed by mega corporations like the Commerce Guild, Techno Union and Trade Federation, and who enslave the Twi'Lek, the Mon Calamari and the Togruta onscreen, just for starters, and use weapons of mass destruction like the Malevolence or that defoliator thing they almost test on the Lurmen when Republic weapons are specifically made not to target organic beings - see the Zillo beast arc) and because the Senate has the authority to order the Jedi to kick people out (Ahsoka) or to drop investigations (Maul in s4, Kamino in s6), and can declare them all traitors. The Jedi don't have the means to go against the whole Republic, and frankly making sure politicians aren't corrupt should primarily be the job of the billions of citizens, not theirs (the 10000~ space monks who have kids to raise and Sith Lords to deal with and would very much like to spend their days meditating and being nerds ("I was going to study that!") and helping people.)

Do they lie to their subordinates to get more power? The Council doesn't lie about its beliefs, and its members actively practice what they preach (letting go of things, staying in control of yourself, protecting the helpless...) so no manipulation there, and while they do lie or cover up things from time to time it's never to achieve power or to benefit themselves directly. The Rako Hardeen act? They lie to save the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, who, as far they know at this point, is their legitimate Commander-in-Chief. OpSec isn't corruption. They cover up the discovery that Dooku made the Clone Army to protect the Clones themselves (as stated by Yoda) and because the public would freak out and then they'd have a civil war on top of a galactic war to deal with. It doesn't benefit them, exactly, because they explicitly say they're not happy about the decision but don't see another way out. ("The right path, no. The only path.") Oh, and Obi-Wan literally tells Rex, Ahsoka and Bo-Katan about Sidious, because the Jedi aren't secretive as a rule. They share intel easily if it'll help people.

Do they seek power in any way? Ffs, when they go against Palpatine – the Sith Lord who orchestrated an entire and forced hundreds of them to for in it, along with hundreds of thousands of Clones and millions of civilians – Mace tried to arrest him twice in the name of the Senate. "In the name of the Galactic Senate, you're under arrest" and after Palpatine kills three Council members "you're under arrest, my Lord." He only tries to kill him without a trial after Sheev blasts him full of lightning for like two freaking minutes. Talk about a coup. (By the way, arresting the Commander-in-Chief of your armies when you have proof of his own corruption, when he has given himself control over the banks (Clovis arc), gotten more emergency powers (RotS), holds power over the courts (Wrong Jedi arc) and has stayed in office for longer than his term? That's not corruption, that's actively fighting fascism.)

You could argue that Obi-Wan sending troops to Mandalore is a misuse of power, but there's a Sith Lord there who could potentially tell them the identity of Sidious and this help end the war. Also, it doesn't benefit him directly since it puts Ahsoka in danger, it divides his fleet and it could get him in trouble since he didn't make the operation a secret in any way. The one time Obi-Wan does go to Mandalore for his own benefit, he does it without backup and without even using Republic property since he borrows Anakin's ship.

So maybe the Jedi are corrupt because they distort their old ideals and preach a false image of the Force? They are corrupt in the sense that they are stagnant and the Dark Side corrupted them? But... Yoda is the Order's greatest critic (see AotC) which points to self-awareness, as he's one of their most important leader, the "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate to suffering" credo is literally how Lucas describes the Force working (see @gffa 's collection of quotes) so they are narratively correct on most of their doctrines (same goes for attachment as Lucas defines it, in opposition to love), and Yoda and Obi-Wan the quintessential Jedi are deemed worthy of immortality by non-Jedi entities. The Jedi constantly talk about how hard war is because it's against who they are at their very core ("we are keepers of the peace, not soldiers," "we are peace keepers," "unfortunately war tends to distort our point of view; if we sacrifice our ideals, even for victory, we may lose that which is most important, our honor," etc) and every decision they take is motivated by the need to protect civilians and the Order. They don't join the war, they get drafted. Hear that, Rebels!Yoda? This is why I base my understanding of Star Wars on the movies and TCW alone, aka Lucas' canon. I swear, idk wrote that part about "the Jedi joining the conflict swiftly in their arrogance" but that's not what happens in the movies. They literally go save a high profile politician and two of their own from unlawful execution and try to arrest Dooku for being a terrorist (he hired people to kill a political opponent) and a threat to the safety of the Republic (he's literally manufacturing entire armies and talking about going to war), and 200 of them get slaughtered for it, and then they get drafted as Generals despite having no military expertise and they can't say no because again, the Senate can (and would) label them as traitors, and if they don't fight the Clones have people like Tarkin leading them. (You know, just the guy who later commits genocide on a whole planet.)

Seriously, I want one, just one concrete example of the PT Order/Council being corrupt, because it's such a common accusation that surely it must be grounded in canon somehow. Right? Right?

The corruption isn’t of wrongdoing, it’s that they strayed from their purpose. Qui-Gon tells Anakin “I didn’t come here to free the slaves.”

Why the hell not? Why aren’t Jedi freeing slaves and fighting slavers and pirates across the galaxy? Either they are doing what is right, or they’ve compromised their principles in some way to continue tolerating slavery. Even if it’s the expedience of “there aren’t enough of us”, that’s a compromise -- one born of necessity, perhaps.

If it’s “We’re not freeing slaves because it would be politically awkward for the Republic government” that’s another level of corruption. That’s not a lack of manpower, that’s agreeing that slavery can continue because the powerful people in the Republic government find it expedient to continue.

@white-throated-packrat​

I can answer all of that in four points.

I’m sorry, this was meant to be way shorter but it grew into a big meta.

1) ADDRESSING THE LACK OF MANPOWER.

There is 10000 Jedi. It’s barely a small village, in a galaxy of trillions. That’s not a ‘compromise’ - it is objectively impossible for the Jedi to end slavery. They have kids to raise, many of them are researchers and diplomats, many of them are elderly. “Lack of manpower” applies for when you have only half of the workforce required to build houses for the homeless.

10,000 vs  (several times) 1,000,000,000,000. That’s 1 Jedi out of a hundred millions people. Hey, my Church of 70 people hasn’t solved human trafficking on our 7 billions people planet (same exact ratio btw). Should we stop giving soup to the homeless and go focus on that instead of straying from our purpose?  

There are more Senators (you know, the people elected to do something about stuff life slavery) than Jedi (semi-religious warrior monks) on active duty. It’s beyond ludicrous to expect the Jedi to be responsible for a galactic-wide problem. 

2) THE LOGISTICS OF ENDING SLAVERY 

You say they “strayed from their purpose.” When in canon is it ever stated that their purpose is to free slaves or fight pirates? You could argue that it’s what their purpose should be, but as it it a Jedi’s purpose is to 1) live by the Force 2) serve the Republic. Why would it be the Order’s moral responsibility to free all slaves? There are tons of other people in the galaxy who could do it to but are busy living their lives. Why is it more the Jedi’s job than anyone else’s? Because they have extraordinary abilities? Plenty of species in SW can do incredible stuff that’d be useful in a fight. Because they have sworn themselves to helping people? You can live in a world with a specific problem without devoting yourself to ending it and not be corrupt/still be doing good. Example: the Red Cross. They operate in a number of corrupt countries where people don’t have freedom of speech/freedom of the press. Why the hell isn’t the Red Cross overthrowing those governments instead of merely providing relief? Do you see the problem with that line of reasoning?

“But they wouldn’t need to end slavery, just to fight it.” If there’s one thing Game of Thrones did right, it was showing that one person - or a small group - cannot oppose institutional slavery in an effective manner - either peacefully or tyrannically. Especially if that person/small group is foreign to the society they’d be “fixing.” Let’s say the Jedi barge into Jabba’s palace, arrest him (on what grounds? He isn’t a Republic citizen, he’s a sovereign landowner - they’d be starting a war, which isn’t ethical) and free his slaves. Who gives them new homes? New jobs? Who makes sure their masters give them up? It’d have to be the Republic, because the Jedi don’t have the funds or the people, and the Republic doesn’t care. What should the Jedi do, mind-trick the Senators? What about slaves who don’t want to lose the relative stability that a good household offers? You’d have to get everybody off Tatooine, so they can’t be snatched and enslaved again. But what if they don’t want to go? Let’s say you miraculously work around all of those issues. You’ve freed the slaves on Tatooine, congrats. The slavers who sold Jabba 20,000 Twi’Leks on their last run will go sell to the Black Sun instead. Do you go to war with the Black Sun? How many will die? How many slaves will die?  Ending slavery is about changing entire civilizations. Changing a people’s ways of thinking, of relating to the world. It can only happen through societal reforms, and it’s long and hard. A hundred Jedi charging lightsabers blazing is not the solution to slavery.

3) ACCOUNTABILITY OF OTHER CHARACTERS

Here’s another post I made about that specific issue. Basically, if you equate the Jedi’s lack of action against slavery with corruption, you’re accusing Padmé and Bail of being corrupt as well. Because Padmé, Bail, Mon Mothma and the other honest Senators are in far better positions to do something about it, and yet we never see that they do. Does that make them corrupt?

The same could be said about Ahsoka. When she sees the slaves working in the spice mines in s7, she doesn’t do anything about it. She could have caused an uprising, right? She could have mind-tricked the guards. Right? Yeah, no.

The narrative doesn’t present Padmé, Bail or Ahsoka as corrupt. Therefore, the Jedi should be held to the same standards.

4) THE JEDI ACTUALLY DO FIGHT SLAVERY WHERE AND WHEN THEY CAN

They track down and liberate the kidnapped Togruta in s4 They free the enslaved Mon Calamari in s4 They free the people of Ryloth in s1

tldr: the existence of slavery in the Galaxy is not proof of the Jedi’s corruption, lack of action or deviation from their purpose, and the Jedi shouldn’t be expected to fix slavery in order to be considered morally free of guilt 

Slavery is illegal in the republic!!!! That’s why Padme is so ducking shocked it still exists in the galaxy in the Republic, where the Jedi operate, there is no slavery.

And I’m always so soooo pissed when people bring up the “I didn’t come here to free slaves” line because like. HE DIDNT COME HERE TO FREE SLAVES. He’s literally transporting a queen from a planet which has been violently overthrown and whose people are being held in camps. He is there bc their ship is fucking broken. And since he’s there he’s supposed to single handedly free every slave on tatooine? He’d fail! He’d make the lives of the slaves there much worse by getting involved. He tries to free both Anakin and his mom (he didn’t think Anakin’s mom was the chosen one he did that out of the kindness of his heart) but when he couldn’t do that he just freed Anakin.

Like? Qui-Gon please abandon your mission of stopping space Amazon from taking over a planet and killing people and free a few million slaves first would you? Oh you can’t? The Jedi are corrupt.

Oh and on a side note. I love how Qui-Gon is the epitome of what Jedi should aspire to be and is the only one who had it right up until every other Jedi has been defended. Then he’s the anti christ who’s pro slavery.

Why Anakin Skywalker was wrong to try to save his wife from death?

There is a confusion among Star Wars fans regarding the Jedi views on life and death, Anakin Skywalker’s premonition about Padmé’s nearing death and Master Yoda’s advise on how to deal with it, with many believing, the Jedi advocated aloofness, deference or inaction. In this post, I’m going to explore:

What Jedi philosophy is, according to critics?

Some who are voicing criticism agains Yoda and Jedi philosophy, are believing, this is the thinking behind the Jedi teachings of letting go of attachments, accepting change and death as a natural part of life: You should love, but keep everything and everyone at arm’s length, so you won’t be suffer when you inevitably lose them, you won’t be afraid of losing them. Settle for what you have, whether it’s good or bad, don’t crave anything, so you’ll never be disappointed. Let life flow as it must, don’t resist whatever it brings, accept it and take it with serenity, the good and the bad. Relinquish your expectations, relinquish your false sense of control over the universe, so you will have lasting, undisturbed peace, stability in the sea of uncertainties. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

What Jedi philosophy actually is?

As George Lucas explained, the Jedi are trained to understand that the reality of nature, of God and of life is that things come and things go; they won’t stay in our lives, and for this reason, we cannot hold on to anything. While they’re in our lives, we shall enjoy, love and protect them, care and fight for them, rely on them, but we must be able to accept the change, and death is the biggest change of all. The Jedi are trained from a very early age to learn how to let go of everything, that is to release the fearful hold on the things and people they love; or in other words, to cease their attachments, the love characterized by the desire to hold on to that we find joyous, pleasant, pleasurable.

Non-attachment is the acceptance of the inevitable reality that all things and beings are impermanent and not desiring the impossible, that is to make them permanent: it’s the way to enjoy the sunlight in its fullest, but to allow the sun(s) to set in peace, without fear, anger and pain. To love without attachment is to love compassionately - to seek to bring happiness to, and alleviate the suffering of others. This love, as opposed to attachment, doesn’t feed into the fear of loss, it brings lasting, true joy, the joy of love, forms a sense of oneness with others, that stays with us and endures all change, all loss, all death.

Anakin Skywalker’s problem and Yoda’s advise

Since Jedi philosophy requires its followers to do anything that is humanly possible to protect their loved ones from harm, one would wonder, why Master Yoda advised Anakin Skywalker to accept the approaching death of the love of his life, instead of urging him to do everything he can to prevent it. The reason for this is that although both Yoda and the Father assures us, the future is always in motion, and nothing is set in stone, the premonitions Anakin had about the death of his wife were not warnings about a preventable possibility. George Lucas made it clear: Padmé’s death was “preordained.”

Anakin “knew she is going to die” and he “knows he can’t have [the life he wants with Padmé and their babies]” and his quest to save her from death is “going against the Fates and what is natural.” He didn’t seek to heal a wound, to cure an illness, to keep his wife safe during childbirth. He knew that her death is inevitable, but he wanted to hold on to her, he wanted to stop her from dying, to stop the suns from setting, to stop change, to alter the way of the universe. The problem Anakin Skywalker seeks help for is: “I had premonitions, I know someone I love is going to die. I don’t want to lose them, what can I do?” And the answer to this - the only possible answer to this - is what Yoda gives: “Death is a natural part of life, nothing goes on forever. What you can do is to not desiring the impossible, that is the impermanent you fearfully grasp on, to be permanent. Accept what is the natural course of life. If you don’t, that will only bring you pain.”

“Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.” - How the Jedi cope with loss?

For every living things, whether to be sentient or non-sentient, there is beginning, and there is end, there is birth and there is death. If we have a realistic, mindful approach to life, we can see and accept this. Obviously, the disappearance of a loved one from our lives will never be easy, will bring sadness, and their absence will always be felt. But the severe pain, sorrow, regret over this, the anguish that we are not with them, the intense yearning to be with them, to get them back is stemming from our desire to hold on to what we find pleasant, good and joyous, from the inability to accept that we can never truly have, own, possess anything. If we cease the unrealistic and unreasonable yearning, we’re able to allow change, to allow death to enter into our lives and seeing it as a natural part of it. And we can be at peace.

The Jedi are too saying good bye to their loved ones, remembering the time they had with them, but when their loved ones die, they let go, allowing death and change to enter into their lives, without fear. And if we love compassionately, as Lucas says, we’re safe from the fear and pain of loss: compassion, unconditional, selfless love, that is to want the happiness of the other person, wanting them to be free from suffering, is devoid of the impulse to have, to possess, to own, to hold on to, thus, it’s a love that is aligned with the reality of life. It creates a sense of oneness with others, birthing the joy of love, which is, as opposed to attachment, which is being sealed together by the love of joy, cannot be ceased by change and death. For this, “do not mourn” is not to say, “push out the pain, the sorrow, fight it down.” It’s to say, “They must go; so let them go. Do not yearn for what is impossible. Keep loving them, so you can keep them in your heart, as you move on.” And when we take in to account that in George Lucas’ Star Wars nothing ever really dies, since Lucas’ metaphor for God, a unified reality to life, a universal life-force, a consciousness, a spirit, from which the life, the consciousness and the spirit emanates into temporary vessels of crude matter, and back into which the life, the consciousness, the spirit of all that ever lived, merges upon death, is an unquestionable reality, it should be clear that it’s Yoda who sees and understands the way of nature, life and God.

This is a great explanation for what so many people misunderstand about the Jedi teaching of letting go of attachments.  Specifically as it relates to Anakin though, I think it’s also valuable to point out that when the Jedi have premonitions, they are not necessarily supposed to remain inactive, but whatever they do must still be in obedience to their code.  In the episode “Assassin” from Season 3 of The Clone Wars, we see Ahsoka experience premonitions of Padme being shot, but she responds to the visions in the correct way and ultimately is able to protect Padme.

“Always in motion the future is” seems to suggest to me that force visions are not always a reality that is set in stone, or at least that they can have more than one interpretation.  Perhaps these visions occur to serve as a warning, but how a person responds to the warning is up to them, and Anakin consistently makes bad decisions, so he chose the worst possible way to respond, in opposition to the Jedi code and Yoda’s advice.