Some Asshole @heroicathena - Tumblr Blog

sometimes i think about the parents

the parents from coruscant to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, who have just become new parents, or perhaps are welcoming their third or fourth

it’s subtle at first, so subtle it’s easy to miss

their baby is different

maybe they’re worried. ‘what’s wrong with my baby? will they be ok? are they sick? they don’t cry like my others, doctor.’

maybe they’re amazed. ‘he has such a way with animals. she always seems to know when it will rain. what amazing reflexes! i’ve never seen a child with such a green thumb!’

it only becomes more apparent as time passes. seasons change, children grow, people talk, and the reality that their beloved child has been gifted with something beyond their comprehension becomes a reality that can no longer be ignored

and then, one day, the jedi arrives

they arrive on the doorsteps of homes both humble and opulent, armed with a soothing demeanor, a benign smile, and an explanation that simultaneously relieves and terrifies

sometimes i think about the horrid realization that, despite a willingness to lay down their own life for their child, despite their attempts to provide to the best of their ability, it is not enough. it never will be

sometimes i think of the tearful goodbyes - goodbyes that are not made any less painful with the knowledge that their decision is in the best interest of their baby

‘will they remember me?’ a parent wonders as they gaze with blurry eyes at the retreating form of the jedi, who carries away their entire world, swaddled in fabric that still smells of home. ‘will they remember my lullabies? my voice? will they remember how loved they were?’

years pass. the absence is a gaping wound that never truly heals. they follow the news, daily, scouring titles and clips for information- hoping to catch a glimpse or the smallest assurance that their child is well, growing, prospering

and then, one day, the news stops. everything changes, and nothing could ever prepare them for what follows

governments fall, an empire rises, and parents across the galaxy are rendered immobile, breathless, and shattered at the uttering of one simple sentence:

the jedi are no more

sometimes i think about the parents.

brachiosaurus-on

The parents who didn’t believe Palpatine’s lies and got arrested and/or killed for trying to find out the truth about their child.

The siblings who were old enough to remember their baby brother or sister being accepted into the Order and meet a survivor who wasn’t their sibling but may have known them and could tell them who their sibling was, what they were like, that they were loved by their brothers & sisters in the Order.

The family members who never give up hope that maybe they survived.

royalhandmaidens

the-last-kenobi

Some people join the Rebellion full of rage.

Some people join full of grief.

Everyone has a cause. Sometimes they’re looking at the bigger picture, the real rallying call, but more often they start out for reasons that are intensely personal, and highly emotional.

You join the Rebellion quiet.

“Why are you here?” cries a General on your first day, and there are answering cries from all around you as your fellows erupt, shouting out their reasons in triumph and fear and regret. They’re full of passion.

You are silent.

“Why are you here?” asks one of your bunkmates after a long day followed by probably more drinking than was advisable, but fortunately they all fall asleep before they remember to press you for an answer.

“Why are you here?” Leia Organa asks you one day on Hoth, and you’re cold down to your bones, and deeper still, and even inside your breath mists on the air.

You look at her and something compels you. Trust. Experience. The honest question in her eyes, calculating but kind.

“The Empire had a lot to say about the Jedi,” you tell her. “Propaganda. And then they’ve tried to erase them. You don’t erase guilty people from history, you punish them. …My sister was one.”

“A Jedi?” Leia asks you, startled.

You nod.

There is a long silence.

“My father knew Jedi,” she confides after a long while. “Many of them. Some of them very closely. Your sister wasn’t a traitor, I swear to it.”

“Oh, I know,” you say. “Four-year-olds can’t be traitors to anything.”

yourscreechingruinscollector

@wearepaladin

polycythemiav

Dragon Age 2 characters but as gifs I have saved on my phone: Merrill!

Isabela [x] Aveline [x] Garrett [x] Marian [x] Fenris [1] [2] Varric [x] Anders [x] Merrill [x]

paxamericana

kineticpenguin

What a funny way to say “cops blew up neighborhood”

smitethestate

It’s been really hilarious to watch the LAPD try to dodge any responsibility for this while the media tries desperately to help them by publishing the most confusing fucking headlines but what really happened is that the cops found and confiscated thousands of pounds of “illegal” fireworks in LA and then decided to take 10 pounds of that, call the press, and make a show of using their new expensive toy, the “total containment” truck that is supposed to be able to take explosions of up to 15 pounds.

So they took the 10 pounds of explosives and their toy truck to a poor Black neighborhood, got reporters there, stuck the explosives inside, and set them off intentionally instead of just defusing them like they did with the other 4,990 pounds of fireworks.

For some reason, likely because something went wrong with their truck which I bet cost the city a shit ton of money, the containment completely failed and the explosion destroyed cars, homes, and injured 17-19 people (I’ve seen different reports with different numbers), a couple of whom were in critical condition but it sounds like everyone survived.

The LAPD then had the audacity to tweet that they didn’t know what caused the explosion when it was them who caused the explosion, intentionally, and we know because they called the media so that everybody could see them do it.

In summary, the LAPD wanted to show off/justify their ridiculous budget but their expensive toy was a dud and so they ended up bombing a poor Black neighborhood (because they would never risk this in a white neighborhood) and don’t want to admit it.

pascalcampion

Not Broken

#pascalcampion

2019

sofhtie

i don’t think I’m ever going to get over this line

doomhamster

#the problem with becoming the kind of hero you needed yourself #is that it can’t change the fact #that nobody came for you

roses-raindrops-and-writing-dea

Holy shit these are two of the most fucking raw things ever....hit home so hard they took my breath away

sinnahsaint

unnatural-twenty

@wearepaladin

wearepaladin

I’ve never given the trope “balance between good and evil” any credit. Good and evil aren’t concepts that can balance each other out. Light and darkness are often used as metaphors for each, but while that’s some fairly potent symbolic imagery, it’s not the reality of the situation.

To me, the more accurate comparison would be that evil is a disease that warps our nature without us ever witnessing it physically. It infects us, poisoning what should be simple parts of human nature into something horrible. Unless you treat the body, the disease eats away at you, corrupting everything until there is nothing worth saving. You can’t compromise with something that will either destroy or consume you. You can only reject and refuse it to let it determine either your fate, or those around you.

You can’t live in balance with evil. You can only fight or submit.

wearepaladin

harbingerofsorrow

The usage of that tweet here is so powerful. I was taking the original post as a purely literary, metaphorical perspective with only a little pertainment with reality, but you’ve powerfully grounded the applications therewith

wearepaladin

Thank you! I know exactly what you mean. I actually made the opening post several years ago, and if you look at the tags, you can tell that I felt I wasn’t getting my point across as strongly as I’d like. Moxon’s tweet was a spike of crystal clarity that complimented what I was trying to say perfectly.

beowulf22121

I also deeply enjoy the tweet as an addition.

I’d like to ask a question, of course directed at OP but also to anyone who feels the drive to answer.

The balance between the two is an old trope and makes little sense real-world. The disease comparison is much better. BUT. What if we cure the disease? I’ve often heard it put that Without evil, what do you have to measure good against?” and I’ve also heard “In fighting your monsters, be careful that you do not become the monster.” So the question is, how do you handle those points of view? Do you have another I haven’t witnessed?

wearewatchman

To me, the idea that good cannot be defined without evil is somewhat ludicrous… if anything, I think the opposite is true. It’s been said that evil is like cold: scientifically speaking, “cold” is nothing but the absence of heat. To try and have a “balance of heat and cold,” you’re abstracting what heat and cold actually are, and to approximate such a “balance” leaves things literally lukewarm. You can’t have both heat and cold, you can only have a lesser amount of heat.

I think good and evil are like that: things like mercy, joy, justice, kindness, generosity, honesty–these things are good, and they’ll be recognized as such even without the contrast evil provides. Anyone who’s given generously to a friend whose needs are already met just to show love, or told the truth when they really didn’t have to just because it “felt right” knows what I’m talking about.

Greed is defined by a lack of generosity.

Lies are things devoid of truth.

Cruelty is nothing more than an absence of kimdness.

And what is the opposite of justice? Injustice, of course. “Not justice.”

Therefore, I hold that good can exist without evil, but not the other way around; just as “darkness,” “cold,” “emptiness,” etc., are only terms to describe the absence of something else, so too is “evil” a meaningless concept without good.

beowulf22121

This is a great way to see it, not two sides of the same coin but as coin and no coin. Thank you, I’m going to put this out there next time I have this discussion.