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y'all it's about to get really fucking humid and hot

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I think it will age like milk.

Imagine thinking that "The Acolyte is going to age well" when it's not going to be like that. Some of ya'll still ignore the stereotyping, racism, aphobia, and blatant glorification of the Sith, which all of you should know that the Sith are inspired by a certain racist faction from WW2 and it shows.

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May the Fourth (fraction of a) Ficlet

“I don’t care what you have to do, just make her behave.”  

That is the last thing Sorcha hears from her mother for a while.  What stood out about this is how cold her tone was.  

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I'm curious. Reblog this if you know how to cook

I don’t even care if it’s macaroni, ramen or those little bowls you stick in the microwave. Please, I need reassurance that most of the population on tumblr WOULDN’T STARVE TO DEATH if their parents couldn’t fix them food or they couldn’t go out to eat. 

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Please reblog if you think that “they/them/theirs” is a valid set of pronouns.

this post must be reblogged by everyone

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Also, anything written by Matthew Stover set in the Prequels is a very high tier of EU canon, because when he was writing those books, Matthew talked directly with George Lucas about what they should be like.

I’ve seen that one of your headcanons for how Anakin and Padmé end together is because of Palpatine’s manipulation and I agree. I’ve long thought from the start he was like slipping some sort of dark side shit into their heads because he has loads of access to both of them since they were literally small children. Being the senator from Naboo who ran the program that Padmé was apart of that would eventually lead to her being a child Queen is soooo not a coincidence. That he used the fact the Jedi were under senate control to force them into letting him have regular meetings with a deeply traumatized child. He saw their weakness and how he could exploit them and how they could unknowingly exploit said weakness themselves for him. I also think at some point he realized that if Obi-Wan and Anakin were left to their own devices they totally would have gotten together and that would have too powerful. So he turned them into suppressed gays. It is so tragic.

IT'S SO TRAGIC AND SO SEXY!!! Also yes, explicitly in the Dark Plagueis book, Palpatine is the reason why Padme gets into politics! He has been grooming her to be his puppet since she was a child, too. He knew Anakin and Obi-Wan were Force Dyad material and that as long as Anakin was loyal to Obi-Wan he would be loyal to the order, and so manipulating Anakin's feelings towards Padme and shoving them together like paper dolls would give him a means to manipulate Anakin away from the Order and to the republic. It was a very clever gambit! He knew what he was doing! Anyway this reading is part of why I just can't see Anidala as an actual romantic, authentic relationship. Palpatines hooks have been in these people since they were children and he had every reason and motivation to cultivate feeling between them, and that is far more believable than Anakin falling for a girl he hasn't seen in YEARS in a matter off a week (while he spends the entire courtship period talking obsessively about Obi-Wan, who he actually loves ). Also explains their super weird, charged lack of chemistry--Padme looking frightened the whole time and telling him to stop, him perusing it doggedly anyway despite her protests, and suddenly her being like "actually yeah I do love you," like I DUNNO SOUNDS PALPATINEISH TO ME.

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The Sith are Nazis and it's never been subtle

This one ended up being really long. I spliced in some images when I could to break it up easier.

One of the things that causes the most friction in the world is the idea of morality. I know, that's the most water is wet statement ever said but I think people really miss just how much the nuance of morality goes over people's heads. Subjective, objective, relative, from a baseline we understand that there are different types of morality but I don't think people really grasp how much a persons personal morality can be wildly different to any another given person's, especially among people who share spaces like fandoms. Morality is shaped by personal experiences, there are personal experiences that are 99% ubiquitous among humanity like "Pain" that form the basis of everyone's moral compass, then there are the major cultural touchstones that no matter what your morality will be affected by, religion, nation, race, all that what have you. Everyone has an opinion on the Christian Church and that opinion is informed by your morals. People who have been abused by members of a church will have a very different view of the morality of a religion compared to people who have been raised Catholic compared to someone who was raised agnostic compared to someone raised agnostic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer and is also rich and so on and so forth you get it.

Morality is not a binary thing, and it's not a nine point grid either D&D, it's more like one of those circle charts that Jojo Stands get ranked on. You know the ones that always seem to show up in anime? I don't know what they're called. Except instead of a circle it's more like a ball, and everyone has this horrible looking 3D balls covered in bumps and spikes and dips and holes.

Why am I opening this ramble with a ramble about morality and religion? Because I'm on tumblr. When I decide I want to ramble about something I read the tags and see what the vibe is, see what people are saying about things. I'm not part of the "Fandom", I don't know the discourses, I see that there's Anti-Jedi and Pro-Jedi and "Stanikins" and all of these different labels and battlelines, and then I read about how people on either side are feeling attacked and harassed by people on other sides. I have no idea how real this is, I have no idea what kind of minefield I'm about to walk into. I'm just rambling about my thoughts and feelings about Star Wars because I like it and I'm a little extra aware that this one is going to ruffle feathers.

Because people are fuckin' worked up about Jedi. There are people who are making it part of their identity that they are anti-Jedi. And it's been happening for years, decades even. Because the experiences and trends of nerd culture has been pushing against systems and religion since I was a baby. Nerds being obnoxious atheists and smugly telling people "God isn't real" was basically the norm when I was a teenager, and before I was born nerds were dealing with being called evil and satanic. Nothing I'm rambling about here is new, in fact using D&D as a touchstone I think the current trend for nerddom's interaction with religion is ambivalence, despite faith and divine power being such an important part of D&D, there's basically zero interaction with divinities in 5e, and when there is it's hostile and has an asterisk against it. I'll do a ramble about this one day too

But the Jedi stuff is interesting to me, because there's a lot of directions people come at for it.

There's people who argue against just Jedi because they're a religion. There's people who argue the Jedi are slavers or kidnap children. People think Jedi are super beings who lord over everyone with their power. People think the Jedi force people to suppress their emotions and personhood. There are people who think Jedi are moral supremacists who silence and kill anyone who thinks about the Force differently from them.

I have some "Pro-Jedi" arguments to make but I'll save them for a different ramble, because this one's supposed to be about another group of people.

The people who think, from their point of view, the Jedi are evil.

The reason I rambled on so much about people being Anti-Jedi is because very often, these people end up being Pro-Sith. It's an obvious leap, if the Jedi are the problem then the people opposed to the Jedi might have the right idea. If your issue with the Jedi is that they disallow "Attachment", then here's the Sith who are all about Attachment. If your issue with the Jedi is that they suppress their emotions then here's the Sith who are always tapping into their emotions. There is an immediate appeal there.

Then there's the Sith Code, let's give it a read.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

Pretty sweet, Passion is pretty positive, breaking chains and freedom. I can get behind that. The rest of Sith Philosophy is pretty swell too. It's about improvement through conflict. Your struggles make you stronger, makes you better, removes your shackles and lets you be free, but also recognizes that you will have to do whatever it takes to do so. The Jedi seek to wipe out the dark knowledge you attain, so you must sequester yourself and hide when you must hide, and strike when you must strike. It's stance could be summed up as something like... "The sacred mission of a Sith is to preserve the Sith Order's most valuable elements as you raise yourself to a dominant position, and all who do not are chaff."

There are people who are really into this. Like, really, really into this. They talk about how they apply this mentality to their real life. They describe themselves as Sith. There are also people who are only kind of into this, they think about positive Sith characters and make headcanons about the good things Sith do.

I need to stress, for those people, that what I am about to say is not hyperbole. I will provide sources.

The Sith Code and Philosophy is Nazi Propaganda. It is literally lifted from Mein Kampf. That quote I used to sum it up is a paraphrased quote from Britannica.com. That's Hitler.

The Sith Code was invented to be in opposition to the Jedi Code, its purpose is to twist a preexisting code to make you think the alternative isn't so bad and it uses codephrases to do so.

Passion, Strength, Victory, Chains, being Free, these are words that we have presubscribed meanings for, but what do they mean in the Sith Code? What IS Passion? What IS Strength? What IS Victory?

Most people I interact with see Passion as Love, passionate, exciting love, the exact thing the Jedi reject. But that can't be it, where's Palpatine's love? Where's Maul's? Where's Vader's?

Passion is obsession. The kind of obsession that will lead you to burning everything down if you don't get what you want. It's not letting anything stand between you and your goal, even if that thing is your goal itself.

Let's break the code down here.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. We start with the obvious twist on the Jedi code, an immediate refutation of the Jedi's first line. It stands in opposition.

Through passion, I gain strength. We've already done Passion, it's a nice little dressing up of "Being a raging psycho"

Through strength, I gain power. Strength is often intermingled with power, but it's often spoken of interchangably with being able to set aside morals. The Sith isn't an amoral monster who just killed a bunch of kids, he's just STRONG enough to do what needed to be done

Through power, I gain victory. Power isn't a code word. Power is Power, Power is what it's all about and there's no hiding it. In the Sith way the only thing that matters is that you are powerful enough to kill your rivals and stand on top.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I think the notions of breaking chains and being Free is the cleverest part of the Sith Code's propaganda kit. It's still seeing use in The Acolyte and it's still convincing people that the Sith are right, even when the guy who's calling for freedom mercs a child then and there.

The Sith are not misunderstood heroes. They're Nazis. They're facist might makes right would be autocrats trying to convince you they're right so you'll validate them and prove them right.

Sith Philosophy is self defeating. Following the Sith Code means you need to define yourself on your conflict, meaning your conflict can never end. For all its claims of being free and breaking chains you can never be free of what drives you or you will lose the strength it gives you. To break your chains you need to hold onto them tight, and you can never let them go.

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"I have a message for people who say, 'Oh there's no point in calling my Republican representative. He doesn't listen, so it doesn't matter.' For the first few years that I was in office, Republicans flooded my phones. Do you think they really thought they were going to change my mind? No. But they constantly and consistently. Republicans flood the phones far more than people who are not Republicans flood the phones. And it does have an effect, because you really start to understand the strength and the scale of what you are up against. Republicans need to get that message too, because it skews our whole environment to the right when the constant pressure come from one place. Like, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but people who watch Fox News all day and right-wing media all day call their members of Congress, and they tend to call members far more, and far more consistently and regularly than everybody else does. And that really matters because phone calls are one of the biggest ways that members measure, not just it's not just numbers, it's how they measure enthusiasm, it's how they measure how people how much they are mobilizing around a certain issue and the more they see them mobilizing the more careful they will be in terms of not making those people more upset. And they will get pressured into acting, or hedging, what have you. So hop on 5 Calls, even the score, because this needs to be regular."

--AOC statement on Instagram

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Keep your messaging simple:

“Trump fired everyone in charge of airplane safety, and a week later planes started crashing into each other.”

That’s it. That’s the messaging. Don’t get bogged down disputing Trump’s false claims. Just blame him, in short and repeatable sentences.

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This is performative.

It's unconstitutional.

An executive order is not a law. Republican lawyers know this is a joke, but they let First Felon cosplay.

Context:

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please please please please reblog if you’re a writer and have at some point felt like your writing is getting worse. I need to know if I’m the only one who’s struggling with these thoughts

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DOGE is egregiously illegal.

MAGA law and order nativists love the South African fascist. Covering up First Felon and Musk crimes is their mission.

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For Anyone Who Lives in the USA.

Please call the Representative for your congressional district and the Senators for your state and make it clear you have a problem with Elon Musk making decisions about federal spending.  

This is a rough template of some things to say, but please say it in your own words and do your own research to avoid everyone having the exact same message, to keep the Senators and Representatives from thinking the calls are AI. 

Hello.  My name is __________ and I want to tell you that Elon Musk having free rein to do whatever he wants with government spending is a major problem that needs to be addressed.  Him being allowed to make major decisions about government spending is a clear violation of the Constitution.  He is not an elected official in the government, so he should not be making these decisions.  He doesn’t know how to run an organization, and if this is allowed to continue, he will tear our country apart while stealing billions of dollars from the government.  I do not consent to having Elon Musk lead our government into ruin like he did with Twitter.  And I do not consent to having the money I pay in taxes stolen by Elon Musk.  

Also, tell everyone you know to call about this issue, and spread this message to everyone they know.   These links will help.

Another helpful link

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The State department has changed LGBTQ to LGB.

If you claim to care about trans people now is a good time to show genuine ally ship.

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As an experiment, I decided to come up with a rewrite of the Jedi Code. The change is structural, not thematic, and I hope this version provides others some insight into Jedi philosophy.

The Force speaks, and a Jedi listens. A Jedi seeks peace beyond attachments. A Jedi seeks knowledge beyond ignorance. A Jedi seeks compassion beyond fear. A Jedi seeks harmony beyond chaos. A Jedi seeks hope beyond destruction. The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force.

My line of thought is that, first and foremost, the power of any Jedi is rooted in finding the most clarity between themselves and the Force. By listening to the Force, they can find the peace and knowledge they need in order to act out of compassion, harmony, and hope.

Second, I also was never a huge fan of the line "There is no emotion; there is peace." I understand what it means (not letting emotions rule your decison-making), but I never like how easy it is to misinterpret (i.e., Jedi can't have feelings ever). But when it comes to losing ourselves in our emotions, we're losing ourselves in attachment. Anakin chooses his fear of losing Padme over seeing through Sidious's lies. Dooku chooses his need for power and despair of the Jedi's future over standing up for his brethren or honoring his fallen former Padawan Qui-Gon. Even Luke gives into his anger in his final duel with Vader, overwhelmed by his need to save his friends at all costs and terrified of what might happen to Leia if he fails.

Third, I changed the line about "passion" versus "serenity" to focus more on compassion versus fear. I see it as a key point to follow the need for knowledge over ignorance, as ignorance can fuel fear, whereas the effort to learn more about others (and about oneself) can foster compassion in a Jedi's choices. The original line in the Code always seemed to me to be about developing good judgment in any situation, and so the reminder here is that a Jedi cares for others, even when faced with danger and uncertainty.

Fourth, I changed the original final line of the Code to refer to hope and destruction over "death" and "the Force." The Jedi represent hope to countless beings across the galaxy in almost every age of history (especially in the reign of the Empire). I thought it would work as a reminder to a Jedi who follows the Code that their ultimate goal is about preserving and defending life, not destroying the enemy no matter the cost. Whereas the Sith define victory by who they crush and how evident their power over others is, the Jedi see victory in the lives they save and the peace they bring to those who suffer. The rise of the dark side's power during the Clone Wars prevents the Jedi from fulfilling that latter duty since there's seemingly no end to the suffering and chaos spreading across the galaxy, so all they can do is lead the clone army and try to save as many lives as they can.

Finally, I just really, really like the mantra of the Guardians of the Whills, and it seemed like an attitude that they and the Jedi Knights have in common whether they can use the Force or not.

tl;dr I took a stab at rewriting the Jedi Code for clarity and for my own personal tastes.