gideon nav's lightsaber

she/he/they ☆ pfp: maezanilla

[maezanilla]

Mi Nonita 💕

[me8t]

this is like the best jacen ive ever drawn hes so stinkin cute

[muppetebbtide]

I think often about the heavy irony of John laughing at Wake's name and mocking BOE's naming systems. BOE are trying to preserve lost Earth culture, but clueless of context, their fragmented merging of high and low culture comes across as silly to John (and us. But it's a noble attempt to preserve everything, even the stuff that wouldn't necessarily seem 'worth' saving. But what does John rename his friends? Pyrrha and Cassiopeia and Ulysses and Augustine. He also names almost everything after Earth culture, but it's literary/religious/historical 'high' culture. BOE is scrabbling to save everything possible, but John has the privilege of context and memory, and so he picks and chooses what's 'worthy' of being used or shared. Low culture is reserved for his little jokes with himself— though honestly, a lot of his references to earth culture full stop seem to be inside jokes at the expense of others. I doubt Cassiopeia knew she was named after the infamously vain ancient queen, for example. John also quotes things at people without explaining what he means, like when he quotes Shakespeare and Hans Christian Andersen at Harrow; he's not really sharing it, he's mostly using it to isolate the other person in the conversation, or make himself seem unknowable and superior. It's honestly very telling that when given the choice John will name most things biblically or classically. It does partially feel like he's desperately scraping to preserve something of his childhood and the home he destroyed (especially with the renaming of Gideon to the Māori translation Kiriona, but... well, he literally renamed her and made her into a walking corpse teenage soldier so :/), but when you look at how he deploys earth culture on the whole, it usually becomes weird and imperialistic and weaponised. He's not really preserving lost art, he's selectively using it for his own agenda, and he's often using the two biggest things that were ever co-opted by conservatives and imperialists, the classical world and biblical convention.

[lady-harrowhark]

reading new books is so hard because like. i know not every sentence can be "memory hit harrowhark nonagesimus with the inexorable gravity of a satellite sucked from orbit, flinging itself to die on the surface of its bounden planet; the world hit her like a fall."

but a lot of them aren't even trying.

[zombie-bait]

Every once in a while I think about what it would've been like for Harrow to witness Nona and oh my god. Big smiles and inquisitive eyes, long hair braided gently by loved ones, silly tshirts and scruffy pants covered in dog hair. The small hands that once held a noose and had to reanimate her own parents' corpses now get gently squeezed upon request. Everything she was never allowed to be and never wanted to be while simultaneously being the only version of that body to experience unconditional love and gentleness and kindness. She did everything right, everything the Ninth House wanted and yet those 6 months were the closest she's ever been to happiness and she (presumably) didn't even get to experience them.

I think it would fuck her up just a lil bit.

[the-boring-distopia]

Not to be the unhinged theorist in the Locked Tomb fandom but the Resurrection Beasts and Alecto have some peculiar themes that just tie too perfectly into radiation.

Like the blue light with Varun. Because if theres a real world example of a haunting blue light you never want to see in person ever, it's this:

Also, Nona does not want and probably can't really eat, which is both a running gag but also one of the first sympthoms after somebody gets radiation poisoning. And at the end of the book, her condition deteriorates.

And even from a narrative point of view: John Gaius used to be a scientist. He wanted to save everyone. He also kinda took the soul of the earth. He embodies powers that, if kept in check, can help many but they can also spell untold destruction. It just works. The resurrection beasts and their rampage basically being the equivalent of a melting reactor would mean it is still John's fault and it fucking is so I will just keep believing it.

[oh-jod-dammit]

Mercy describes Varun as "blue like Loveday's eyes", and Gideon compares Cytherea's (aka Loveday's) eyes to "electromagnetic radiation" specifically.

And there are debatably implications they were working with radiation in the first place for the cryo project! From the sound of everything combined, probably testing that the frozen people shipped off to Tau Ceti would be good to survive the radiation of space, and they'd gotten it up to an estimated 92% chance of success without significant lasting damage for the average person, but to get to those numbers, they'd wound up with a whole mess of very irradiated corpses. Which was why they were going to have so much trouble disposing of them, and when John talks about just burying them he sarcastically mutters "you would've loved that", and why the general population was so freaked out by how Scary it sounded, and why John got blacklisted from a lot of shit (despite having been the one to insist on clearance from Asia-Pacific Environmental!). He describes the latter specifically as "I was irradiated." And we do know how Muir loves layered meanings, especially through John!

And I mean. Necromancy in general is fossil fuels 2.0, so making the RBs nuclear feels right. And!! There's my recent theory that the whole solar system is A SYSTEM, effectively like the sun as a brain and the planets as organs for one big body, with all of them innately connected, but with or without that take, we know at minimum there's a lot of sun association with John and Alecto. So there's nuclear fusion too!

[championofdnd]

Someone in the comments said something about fusion and fision. I think there are parallels between that and the idea of thanergy/thalergy. The violent removal of a soul from its body always produces a revenant. The violent splitting of two parts of a whole generates vast amounts of energy. Only the nine houses planets produce death energy. The planets that were violently split into two parts.

[douche-canoe-regatta]

Oh god, this connects SO many dots in my own terrifying Megatheorum. I won't even fit this in one reblog, because this is taking forever to write - but I think it's worth it.

On Tor's website, TLT is listed as Scifi/Fantasy. However, when forced to choose, Tor picks Scifi above all. This is HUGE, because even with all the necromancy and fantasy elements of The Locked Tomb, the publisher looked at the series and said "No, this is scifi." Ergo: the "magical" elements must have a basis in science.

Now, spiritual/religious elements (souls etc) can exist alongside science without much issue. But if you're manipulating physical objects in a real-world environment, you have to explain it in a way that could conceivably track with scientific theory as it functions in the real world. You can extrapolate from there.

So. In GtN, we enter a world of fantasy tropes and Regency-era hand wringing about social morés.... but we also see Palamedes tear his hair out about dating Canaan; how nothing seems to fit a reasonable timeline. In real life, scientists use radiometric dating in geology & archeology to determine the age of objects. (also, do necromantic (or irradiated) interactions with objects impart additional radiation? I don't know!!)

TLDR; You can tear the soul out of a planet, but the actual tearing process needs to make enough sense to pass muster in the Scifi world. Nuclear fusion is a great candidate, as mentioned by @oh-jod-dammit and @championofdnd and is supported by the text ("the soul was like a tiny atom bomb"). God, it's right there.

This, of course, raises some questions.

If necromancy is related to radiation, what power does Alecto/Earth impart to John that allows him control of (assumingly) irradiated corpses? and WHY? What about him was so fucking special? Sure, he was trying to get humans off Earth for its own sake, presumably by testing radiation shielding for long-range space flight. (aka the problem with pregnancy is you have to worry about irradiation for fetuses or reproductive organs. probably.)

But how is John a better ally than an eco-warrior or biologist or any number of scientists that were presumably trying to save the Earth? Alecto (allegedly) said she chose him. How did he bring himself to her attention? If we keep following this logic, how did radiation connect them?

I'm tired. Let's review some facts from both sides.

.Electromagnetic Radiation is produced by stars and other celestial bodies.

.Planets, people, and stars emit different types of radiation.

.Planets and people are proven to have souls, which can be removed from the body by force.

.Do stars have souls?? The sun?? The Moon in the Fucking Sky??? (where is the Moon, btw??)

.Does radiation serve as a connection to a different dimension? Are radio waves a bridge to The River? Did John tear a hole in spacetime and make some kind of wormhole?

"you were the noise that was everywhere" thats RADIO WAVES. tamsyn muir I will GET YOU

This is why Wake is wearing a Haz suit in the River Bubble, btw. She only started experiencing negative effects when the suit was punctured. (right?). It's why The Eggs All Died. It's why flipped planets slowly mutate. RADIATION. I love y'all.

The stupid First House robes? They're a fucking PRISM. Electromagnetic Radiation is visible light!! GODDAMN!!!

And here's where I leave this for a breather. My original document got corrupted somehow. probably the radiation :(

[douche-canoe-regatta]

Okay @oh-jod-dammit brought up some REALLY interesting things in the comments that set my brain on fire

On Wake:

Ya gotta ask - Why was Wake wearing the Haz suit before she died? On the Ninth, her body is found wearing a life support suit as an outer layer, but that's different. This suggests she was possibly wearing the Haz suit underneath - to protect against what?

Also, good catch with Jod being chosen/unchosen! I think it's more like -

Jod is very close to the electromagnetic spectrum through his work with irradiated corpses

So close that he, a living person, is able to “make waves” in the EM field - aka influence physical reactions, like moving/manipulating bodies.

This work puts him closer to whatever plane the souls reside in (The River) and thereby Alecto.

That's what brings John (unknowingly) to her attention; he *was* chosen by her (“I picked you to change, and this is how you repay me?”) BUT she had no idea he would force a connection through the opening made by the death of “the nun” (which, btw: pre-resurrection, Christabel is never given a first letter like M– or A– ; only “The nun” or “M– ‘s nun”). 

If John had stopped at physical manipulation - kept curing cancer, found a way to heal the earth using EM waves, etc, he never would have broken through. But by cracking the “atom bomb” of a soul that was the “missing link,” John forced a door to open between the physical plane and The River/astral plane. He may have pushed a ton of EM waves/radiation through the hole while cycling the power back through himself (?)

"I was looking at the code, I knew why I hadn't been able to see anything.” Radio waves would cause a lot of interference, yeah?

Random additional thoughts:

Wherefore the missing people? Well, per John, he “snapped up” a large percentage of humanity before the nuclear warheads hit, although he phrases it as a kindness. I don't know if that means he claims some kind of ownership over those souls. This is a wobbly guess from me.

The reason the Houses don't have much in the way of technology is because the radiation renders it null. Otherwise they'd definitely have SOMETHING after 10,000 years. You can't just kill everyone who ever had the idea for an internet.

Again, WHERE IS THE MOON. We see no references to it at all.

Y'all are bringing up some great points, keep 'em coming! My original Megatheorum included most of this, but I had no scientific explanation that fit the clues. So far Electromagnetic Radiation is the *best* fit I've found that explains Tor's Scifi designation while matching the text provided.

FYI, my knowledge of EMR is based in astronomy, one of my finest hyperfixations. However I have no schooling in such and am going largely by Wikipedia articles and sheer determination.

[asterebel]

I've seen a tiktok lately talking about Jesus being two different people: Jesus Christ, the mythical figure, and Yeshua, the man who may have inspired that figure, and I couldn't help but think about how this applies to Gideon.

She, as this twisted version of the son of God, follows a similar dychotomy. We meet Gideon Nav, a reluctant servant of the Ninth House, with apparently nothing special about her except for being the only competent person available to be Harrow's cavalier. Then, when we meet her again in Nona the Ninth, she isn't that person anymore. She has been resurrected as Kiriona Gaia, God's daughter.

When she first appears we barely see the Gideon we know. We don't know what her resurrection took from her, and even at the end of the book, when we perceive a glimpse of the old Gideon, she still feels like a different person. She was transitioned from normal person to mythical figure but instead of being turned into this ideal good-natured godsent woman, she turned more bitter and, as Nona said, the saddest girl in the whole entire world.

[mrkestis]

Today I’m thinking about Depa Billaba and her experience with depression in both legends and canon.

In legends she goes on a mission to the planet Haruun Kal during the early Clone Wars, and there she turns to the dark side. It isn’t because she wants power, it’s because she despairs over the horrors of war. She’s constantly plagued by nightmares and migraines and she’s barely able to get out of bed. Her despair leads her to commit atrocities, and she even duels her former master Mace Windu during a final battle for Haruun Kal. Realising what she has become, she places her lightsaber to her head and tries to kill herself. At the last second she’s stopped but she falls into a comatose state from which she never wakes. Mace says that selfishly he would’ve rather lost the battle of Haruun Kal if it meant he could’ve saved Depa. She was his Padawan, his best friend, and the daughter he’d never have.

In canon Depa also goes to Haruun Kal during the Clone Wars, but instead of turning to the dark side she suffers a great defeat at the hands of general Grievous. She loses 90% of her battalion on top of receiving life threatening injuries herself, which leads to her falling into a coma. After six long months she’s finally woken up by the precence of a young Caleb Dume. Whispers go around the temple and in the army that she’s now ”damaged goods” incapable of leading soldiers in battle. Depa of course feels guilt and responsibility for the lives lost on Haruun Kal. It’s the presence of Caleb Dume, the youngling she now takes on as an apprentice, which reignites hope and purpose in her life. Even if their time as master and padawan is cut short because of order 66, Depa’s legacy and teachings live on in Caleb, now Kanan Jarrus, as well as in his own padawan Ezra Bridger.

In legends there is no Caleb Dume, Depa never wakes up, Mace never gets his daughter back and their legacy dies alongside the Jedi order.

[me8t]

i have a weird thing abt dark side kanan as a concept cause like.. its not that i think kanan is inherently good i just think his prominent flaws and the way they effect his relationship w/ the force  wouldnt really put him in a position to turn to the dark side. kanans biggest problem is his fear, especially of losing his family and that stability, but unlike other characters we see tempted to the darkside like anakin or ezra his fear doesnt manifest in passion and especially aggression but instead in inaction. kanan runs away from his problems, hes passive, hes a coward, and you can kind of see that in the sort of forced apathetic persona hes got going on in a new dawn. kanan doesnt not have problems with attachment, its that his close attachments make him insular and avoidant of conflict cause he wants to protect them.

so i dont really see a situation where kanan or caleb goes imp or is a sith. i think it demands a level of like agency or commitment? maybe? that kanan doesnt necessarily have in his lowest moments. hes not ever mentally in a place for that he sort of goes all blank. yknow post malachor when he is running away from his problems he goes all neutral and passive.

im sure there is a way to do it in a way that aligns with the aspects of his character i really like but im gonna hve to work it through in my head.. i dont think kanan is cruel, i think his biggest cruelty is being passive when he knows he can and should do better… hes not a passionate character when it comes to fear or hate. idk. much to consider…

[asterebel]

One of my favourite things in Thrawn Ascendancy is that it keeps in mind that different people speak different languages through the use of trade languages and the importance that Chiss give to learning them. It makes the world more realistic and immersive in a different way than "learnt it because had no other option/learnt it because it's a close one's native language", which are the main cases in other Star Wars projects. Chiss, or at least Chiss' military, must have certain esteem for languages or they would just have translators/interpreters inside their fleet instead of making their soldiers learn them (not devaluing the work of the translators, it's simply different understanding something yourself than having it translated to you). It's quite a small detail but I love sociolinguistics.

[journalistmotaz]

My name is Moataz, a journalist from Gaza.

My story!

Imarried Huda on June 22nd. I was very happy with her. I photograph humanitarian issues for the world. The war started and we were exposed to a deadly attack that we miraculously survived.

We became homeless, without food or drink. My wife was crying. I set up my tent for the first time after displacement on November 1st. We sought refuge with all the relief organizations, but no one helped me. We are now awaiting the birth of our first child after a long wait. Huda is pregnant... I tried to search for safety by any means, for me, my wife Huda, and our eagerly awaiting son, Malek! 😭

We were surprised by the new displacement and the terrifying sight of the bombing. We lost everything we owned for the second time, we took refuge in Rafah, I tried in every way to provide healthy food for my wife and our expectant child, but we were surprised for the third time by a major attack that made us leave without any food or shelter, Huda is eight months pregnant and we were displaced for the fifth time, this time is the worst, Huda and I stayed for five days sleeping on the burning sand of the sea. We did not taste food for five days, 💔

...

Vetted by "gazavetters 527"

we were forced to sell sweets to save and pay the price of the tent. The date of birth of our first child, Malek, came, while we were preparing our tent to receive him, the place next door was bombed. Huda saw the remains, she lost consciousness, Dr. Ghassan requested an emergency delivery, Malek, our first child, died, I cried bitterly, and she entered a state of blood poisoning. All I want from you is to help me to save my family and Huda and restore my hope in life, from now on you, my family, I want to reach my goal, any donation. Help me save my family, if you can't please I just want to cry💔🥹🙏

Vetted by "gazavetters 527"

Donate here!

Donate to help Motaz and his family survive

Hello, my name is Ash, I'm fundraising for my friend Motaz.  Motaz is a journalist living in Gaza who has frequently been displaced from hom

Media reports I have prepared

https://www.newarab.com/features/gazas-christians-hold-faith-easter-returns-under-siege

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/why-sinwars-death-wont-change-israels-war-strategy-gaza

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/does-israel-have-regional-strategy-beyond-endless-war

[carbonitechaz]

Ok, since you insisted, I will elaborate on my Kanan's Bad Haircut apologia.

you see I am simply obsessed with the idea of Kanan and Caleb having the same destiny, of them being the same person more than either of them know. Kanan had spent so much of his life running away from who Caleb was. Then, after Ezra and especially after Malachor, I think he's trying to be the Jedi he always envisioned Caleb would grow into.

At the end of the series, I think we see the reunification of the two identities in a common destiny - fighting for Lothal and saving an innocent as Caleb and rescuing his lady for the sake of him and their family as Kanan. I think the haircut helps visually represent that. He is no longer trying to be a wise Jedi with his grown-out beard, he is no longer Kanan, hiding his eyes under a mask. He is both. He is the confident padawan we see at the beginning of Bad Batch, he is the dashing spacer we see in A New Dawn. He both reclaims a form of his padawan haircut, and he tries to do something his wife will like. He takes of his mask and allows himself to be seen with confidence, he goes in prepared to make a sacrifice with humility.

He has realized that Caleb Dume was always going to grow up to be Kanan Jarrus, and that Kanan Jarrus never stopped being Caleb Dume.

And, once again, and I cannot stress this enough, shaved sides and no mask is hot. ty have a nice day <3

[me8t]

a new dawn!! kanera designs!!!

p sureee (?) heras jumpsuit is described as skin tight but i dont like that for her soooo made it more in line with her usual silhouette

sorry if you saw this before its back now

[me8t]

he shouldnt have been at war,,, he shouldve been a girl dad,,,

sister drawing to the kanan and ezra one... they feel so safe with him it makes me sick

[87000beesinapersonsuit]

saw this post and knew i had to draw her

[asterebel]

My bsf told me when she watched Star Wars for the first time that maybe I like Mel so much because she reminds me of Padmé and lately I've been thinking about that.

She may have shared some traits with Padmé at the beginning, but you know who she became at the end of the series? Satine Kryze. The pacifist governor of a militaristic nation. A woman whose family had been taken by war, not necessarily by killing them. A lone leader in a hostile world.

[bberry005]

really thinking about how hopeless things felt for the rest of the ghost crew post season 2 finale. kanan practically out of commission, ezra falling into a guilt fueled crisis that leads him to follow the path of the dark side, ahsoka dead, maul on the run, and all of this while the rebellion is trying to get their feet under them with the permanent base on atollon so no one can slow down and process or ask anyone what's wrong or figure out what to do for themselves because it's constant sprinting to get the rebellion off the ground for real. and they're all so worried about ezra but because he keeps producing results and the rebellion desperately needs those wins he keeps getting praise and promotion for what he's doing even though it's killing him inside and out and kanan is the only one who could definitively fix it (at least in their eyes) and he's not there and all hera, sabine, and zeb can do is watch and keep following ezra and pray they'll be able to catch him when he falls completely because the one person who they could guarantee would pull ezra back isn't there. i need a minute.