Latest Posts by faint-taste-of-almonds - Page 10

god's bravest little soldier? no. devil's most cowardly huge draft dodger

muse (derogatory)

babe no of course your unsettling stare and random fits of prophecy aren’t ruining the function

they’re all just pissy bc they all have to go die on a quest now

people say the Brucie Wayne persona isn’t believable but if I caught Bruce Wayne drunkenly lying under a desk in an office he shouldn’t have access to with a ream of secure documents and he replied to my “Mr. Wayne?” with “Mr. Wayne was my father—oh god, my father” and then started sobbing, I would 100% back away and leave him alone. like that shit would work on me every time.

There’s something terribly poetic in the inevitability of events in EPIC. The choices Odysseus is given lead to no win situations. They aren’t really choices at all.

Kill a foe’s child or witness the death of your own. Sacrifice six men or sacrifice them all. Allow your crew to starve or watch as they slaughter sacred cattle.

Sacrifice your friends, your brothers, or give up your last chance at reaching home.

In the end, the result is always the same. He destroys himself

I just got my obi-wan comic and how am I supposed to be normal after obi-wan saying this:

"I still think of my second in command, CC-2224, whom I called "commander Cody" - with great fondness"

thinking abt characters in a ‘beating them up is not enough i need the whole world to be against them” way. in an “i need their only purpose to be impossible and fucking insane with the circumstances they are given but i want them to keep trying even though they are the bug the universe tries to squash under its heel” way even

Really glad we’re crowning Dick as the scariest batfamily member. Society is healing.

Don’t mind me, just imagining Bruce’s hands, big, soft, covered in the labor of violence, holding his eldest’s face, saying, “This is Dick. He’s the kindest person I know.”

Dick’s fists are behind his back. He’s holding some socialite’s bloody tongue in them. If they’re going to use it to talk shit about his father, they don’t need it. His smile is sunshine and war.

ok the Spotify lyrics for “Different Beast” say that the words are “man-made monster”, implying a monster that has been made by men

BUT this whole time I’ve been hearing it as “man made monster” which to me implies a man that has been MADE INTO a monster

Which I think aligns a lot more with the point of the song, the idea that Odysseus (and his crew) is no longer the same as he was before, that he is the monster

Because they were not made monsters by men, but by gods and circumstance

Idk which jorge meant (though I wouldn’t it past him to mean both) but I find this interpretation fascinating

really don’t know how you can watch the scene in tpm where palpatine talks directly in padme’s ear in front of the senate, and she’s begging for the galaxy to care about her people dying, and he’s boldly manipulating her into calling that vote of no confidence, she looks like she’s about to burst into tears, absolutely no one is helping her, no one but this evil evil man, and think the prequels portrayed padme as exclusively comfortable & confident in the role of queen. they’re action movies yes, she’s an action hero who is brave and charges into battle, but they are also tragedies. padme is a tragic character. part of that tragedy is her at 14 being put in charge of a whole planet and falling prey to a dark lord’s manipulations. do i wish this element was expanded upon in the movies? yes of course. but i will never understand people acting like it’s not there at all. she was 14. in aotc she says she was too young. it’s right there

Dooku is haunted by a past he cannot go back to.

Sifo-dyas is haunted by a future he cannot escape from.

If anybody cares

feels relevant to my tastes

Me when the musical based on a famous greek tragedy becomes tragic

As someone who studies natural sciences, I think Coruscant as a planet is very interesting in a very horrifying way.

There is nothing natural there. The whole planet is completely dead. No natural climate, no hydrological cycle, no natural seasons, no fauna or vegetation left. The planet is completely dead, in a biological sense.

Coruscant is haunted because it's dead, and the only thing left there from the planet itself are ghosts.

let's face it, Obi-Wan is only a stickler for the rules in comparison to Anakin. this guy thought lightsaber nunchucks were cool as a teenager and jumping out of politicians windows was cool as an adult. he regularly sasses the chancellor of the republic. he saw Anakin and Padmé being super obvious and decided it was none of his business. he sits pussy facing the world in important meetings. hes's a lonely single in your area. he won one (1) fight against a sith lord and decided they were his speciality despite getting his ass handed to him by Dooku multiple times. he's annoying on purpose as a battle strategy. every man he meets desires him carnally and he doesn't notice. he puts one foot on Han Solos ship and is like "damn bitch you live like this" despite having spent 20 years in a desert hole. he gets himself killed to one-up Vader one last time. he's winning the idgaf war

my favorite thing about anakin as a character is the inherent nuance lucas wrote into his story, like he's neither an innocent victim nor an inherently evil monster, he's just some guy put in a series of Situations and ultimately failing the test of his humility and self-control. he was certainly flattered and shaped by the devil, spiraling into something unrecognizable, but he chose to take every step down the pathway to hell. lucas knew he would lose a certain demographic by making him basically a greedy pawn in the larger story, not a righteous betrayed macho badass, but he did it anyway. he made him an awkward romantic and a loyal friend, a generous boy and a brilliant teen. he made sure he had all the positive qualities that meant that he had potential to be so much more than vader, but it was clearly his choice to lie, murder, and fully squander that potential. there are no excuses for what he became, no acceptable reasons to commit mass slaughter. he became an unbelievably selfish and impatient man, reckless and wantonly violent. hayden captured that nuance so well, nobody can match the sweetness of his smile and the absolute horror of his scowl on mustafar. to view him through a single lens as either pure victim of manipulation and (canonically unsupported) emotional neglect, or a creepy evil villain, denies the heart of his story and the weight of his tragedy. he's neither an angel nor a demon, he's both and neither, he's deeply human, a classical tragic hero with a flaw of greed. lucas made a choice with the prequels to tell a story that not everyone wanted to hear, and the result was a character that i think is one of the best of modern pop culture, mostly because he feels to me so very, very ancient and eternal.

I just got The Art of Star Wars: The High Republic book, and there’s a quote from Ian McCaig I really liked.

“Here’s the thing about the Force — maybe it’s just my interpretation of it, but I thought it was something George [Lucas] told us back on The Phantom Menace: There was no light [versus] dark side of the Force. The dark side is part of the Force. What keeps it in balance is saying no to it, allowing it to do what it does, to warn and to frighten and to guide us through our dark emotions, and then you’re using all of the Force, not just one little piece, which is where the dark side always goes wrong. But what [the Jedi are] calling the light side is the entirety of the Force.”

I just like this because of the idea of some pretentious Sith going “we have embraced all of the Force while you pathetic Jedi sit around with your narrow-minded idea—“ and then there’s this guy saying “well ACTUALLY”

i’ll say it til the cows come home but as undeniably strange as the star wars prequels are, george lucas’ direction with anakin was downright fucking inspired. people were waiting for whatever badass backstory lucas was sure to give them, awaiting a naturally intimidating actor with rogueish charm to be cast, waiting for this masterpiece of badass villainy or whatever, and george lucas is like no, no, i’ve got you. and then he finds the one man on the planet who looked babier than baby mark hamill and says, “his main personality trait will be being weird and awkward, secondary personality trait loving his wife, tertiary personality trait being incredibly good at murder, and all of these traits will do battle on the silver screen for three movies until they all win in possibly the worst way.” that fucking rules. george lucas could’ve done anything with darth vader and he willingly, enthusiastically chose mentally unstable college student who is somehow married but his only friend is his kind-of dad. that fucking rules, top down, that’s fucking exquisite. if you don’t think that premise is inherently entertaining you’ve got no taste

Power move: Cody exclusively referring to Jango as "the rough draft"

the force should be a little scary the way the ocean is a little scary

LFMAOOOOO INFINITE SADNESS BE UPON YOU BOTH LFMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 🫵🫵🫵

text is from the poem hevel by Nathaniel Orion!

there are some things a character should not be able to tell us about themselves EVEN with a gun to their head. depending on the character that could even expand to include "most" things

really obsessed with this moment in Wild Space by Karen Miller

Master Kenobi. "He's quite intimidating, isn't he? Even for a Jedi." (p.152)

bail organa and padmé amidala both agree on this, and they're both senators and planetary leaders. can you even imagine what regular people think when obi-wan kenobi turns up? like we all know anakin is scary because he's a loose unit but obi-wan is probably the more intimidating of the two outside of situations where anakin is able to growl and swing his lightsaber about. anakin's cringefail social skills got nothing on obi-wan's immaculate politeness and devastatingly piercing blue eyes. anakin is combat scary, but obi-wan is regular scary.

idk man i am imagining the Team rolling up to some fancy gala and it's definitely obi-wan who's making people sweat. anakin has spilled sauce down his shirt and is making overenthusiastic nerd conversation, meanwhile obi-wan is gliding around all stoic and serene and scattering people like pigeons at the park

This is every time I have ever seen George Lucas talk about attachment in Star Wars and every time he has consistently, repeatedly tied attachment to 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.  That if you refuse to let go, which is one of the central themes of the movies, it directly leads to the dark side. That, when the Jedi say attachment is forbidden, they are saying that you can’t want to hold onto things so badly that you’ll slide to the dark side and be willign to do anything just to stop yourself from feeling that fear of losing them (which wouldn’t even work anyway). This isn’t only part of the definition of attachment, this is every time attachment is talked about, it’s synonymous with the dark side.  This is the full context of what attachment means in Star Wars and to the Jedi.  Attachment = greed, possession, fear, the inability to accept the nature of life, full stop.  That’s it, that’s the definition in the galaxy far, far away. : (Bolding is mine for drawing the connections between everything said here.) THE PHANTOM MENACE COMMENTARY: George Lucas, The Mythology of Star Wars, 1999:

BILL MOYERS: “The Phantom Menace is about letting go?” GEORGE LUCAS: “It’s about letting go.”

George Lucas to CNN, May 8, 2002:

    “In this film, [The Phantom Menace] you begin to see that he has a fear of losing things, a fear of losing his mother, and as a result, he wants to begin to control things, he wants to become powerful, and these are not Jedi traits. And part of these are because he was starting to be trained so late in life, that he’d already formed these attachments. And for a Jedi, attachment is forbidden.”

ATTACK OF THE CLONES COMMENTARY: George Lucas, BBC News, 2002:

     "Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.”

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

     “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.    “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.“

George Lucas, CNN.com 2002:

“The message [of Attack of the Clones] is you can’t possess things. You can’t hold on to them. You have to accept change. You have to accept the fact that things transition. And so, as you try to hold on to things or you become afraid of – that you’re going to lose things, then you begin to crave the power to control those things. And then, you start to become greedy and then you turn into a bad person.”

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

    “The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what [Anakin]’s really upset about is the fact that he’s not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could’ve kept his mother. He could’ve saved her and she could’ve been in his life. That relationship could’ve stayed there if he’d have been just powerful enough. He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side.    “And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you’ll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says ‘I will become more powerful than every Jedi.’ And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say ‘I have become more powerful than any Jedi.’ So you’re going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn’t have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that’s where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.“

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

      “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that [Anakin] cannot hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first years and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.    “But he become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.    “He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side.  [….]    “Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.”

George Lucas, Time Magazine, 2002:

    “[Anakin] turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.”

REVENGE OF THE SITH COMMENTARY: George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith:

    “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth,” he continues, “They’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments.”

George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith, 2005:

     “The core issue, ultimately, is greed, possessiveness - the inability to let go. Not only to hold on to material things, which is greed, but to hold on to life, to the people you love - to not accept the reality of life’s passages and changes, which is to say things come, things go. Everything changes. Anakin becomes emotionally attached to things, his mother, his wife. That’s why he falls - because he does not have the ability to let go.     “No human can let go. It’s very hard. Ultimately, we do let go because it’s inevitable; you do die, and you do lose your loved ones. But while you’re alive, you can’t be obsessed with holding on. As Yoda says in this one, [The scene in which Anakin seeks Yoda’s counsel] You must learn to let go of everything you’re afraid to let go of.’ Because holding on is in the same category and the precursor to greed. And that’s what a Sith is. A Sith is somebody that is absolutely obsessed with gaining more and more power - but for what? Nothing, except that it becomes an obsession to get more.      “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth, they’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So, what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.”

OVERALL COMMENTARY: George Lucas, Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005:

     “The core of Anakin’s problem is that the Jedi are raised from birth so they learn to let go of everything. They’re 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, The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005:

     “[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. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact.    “In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. 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.    “That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.” 

George Lucas, Mellody Hobson George Lucas - Virtual Speaker Interview, 2021

   “The thing with Anakin is that he started out a great kid he was very compassionate, so the issue was how did he turn bad. How did he go to the dark side? He went to the dark side, Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments. They can love people, they can do that, but they can’t attach, that’s the problem in the world of fear. Once you are attached to something then you become afraid of losing it. And when you become afraid of losing it, then you turn to the dark side, and you want to hold onto it, and that was Anakin’s issue.  Ultimately, that he wanted to hold onto his wife who he knew, he had a premonition that she was going to die, he didn’t know how to stop it, so he went to the dark side.  In mythology you go to Hades, and you talk to the devil, and the devil says ‘this is what you do’ and basically you sell your soul to the devil. When you do that, and you’re afraid and you’re on the dark side and you fall off the golden path of compassion because you are greedy, you want to hold on to something that you love and he didn’t do the right thing and as a result he turned bad.”

at the end of the day when it comes to padmé i think it’s really important to remember that her closest friends are literally her employees. her only other friends are her coworkers. her closest friend for years was a girl she met at 14 whose job it was to pretend to be her and potentially die about it. another friend with the same job died in her arms while pretending to be her. she does not have friends outside of her squad of employees who pretend to be her and sometimes die about it and then her politician coworkers. too many of you are way too surprised that this woman is not normal about love or relationships or her own self considering all this

the thing I find charming about the jedi apprentice books is the absolute dedication to giving obi wan a taster of literally every other character's personal trauma.

oh you were a child slave? yeah that happened to him. you had to kill someone you cared about to protect innocent lives? yeah he did that at like 13. you were forced to lead children into battle as a child yourself? obi wan did that. you had to live on the run from all factions of a planet torn by civil war? that happened to obi wan like three times.

also as an adult he never once mentions any of this. icon behaviour.

Being friends — not just colleagues — with Bruce Wayne, as a reporter, must be a fucking nightmare. Everything Clark knows about him is off the record. Clark has unique insight into world events, WE business, and Gotham politics, and he can’t use ANY of it.

Lois asks him casually about [large unfolding global event/Gotham kidnapping/etc] and Clark’s jaw snaps shut so quickly, it jolts everything in the apartment. They have a code phrase, and eventually a code look, for I know this but I can’t tell you how and please don’t ask me about it ever again.

She makes the mistake, one day, of asking him about Jason Todd’s death. Clark’s eyes spark red before he closes them, jaw clenched tight enough to form diamonds. And Lois’ job is to try, very very hard, not to follow down the burgeoning mental connection between Jason Todd and I can’t tell you about this.

you, you get me

yes there's a lot of things to criticize about Star Wars but one thing i will always love it for is being so unabashedly tragic

i'm sure it's been said before, but one of the main things i think powers the SW fandom (fics in particular) is the (in)evitability of it all

time travel fix-its are one of the most popular sub-categories of fics that i've seen (for the prequels at least) but i see it much more rarely in other fandoms. i know each fandom has their own niches that they dig into but star wars fic writers took one look at this decades long story of people who were doomed from the start and said 'not in my house bitch'

and i'm never tired of it, because there's so many places where just one different action could have changed the story entirely, but didn't

was it over the moment Palpatine succeeded in feeding Anakin's fears and his distrust toward the Jedi? the moment the Sith gained control of the senate? what about when the war started, when the Jedi were made generals of men designed to be their executioners? what about when Dooku left the order? when Qui-Gon Jinn died, leaving barely-knighted Obi Wan Kenobi to raise a child he had no idea how to care for? when the Jedi massacred the Mandalorians at Galidraan, leaving Jango Fett primed (hah) for revenge? when Palpatine, and thus the Sith, first gained influence? when the Jedi were tied to the Republic, all the way back at the Ruusan Reformation?

there are so many little moments that turn into this huge web of cause and effect when you take a step back. and in canon, these characters are dooming themselves while we watch, but what reason do they have to do anything different? they don't know they're in a tragedy - its dramatic irony at its goddamn finest

but there's this thing about decisions: for it to be a choice, there has to be another option. and our heroes make their mistakes because that's what they do, while we aren't privy to that other option, leaving that little what-if. it's a favorite human pastime, to think about what might have been.

we start at episode 4, though, fourty or so years after what you could arguably call the start, and find ourselves watching the dominoes fall in place throughout 1, 2, and 3.

and we can hate the choices, hate the tragedy, hate what happened to our beloved characters, but we knew. we had the luxury of knowing.

it's a love story, it's political intrique, it's sci-fi at its finest, and they were dead from the start.

Tumblr Tuesday: Roan of Art

It's fine, it's cool. This is happening. Chappell Roan is Roan of Arc, champion and savior of sword lesbians and queer kids the world over. And, of course, the art goes so hard.

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