I was searching the Latin/Greek section of a used bookstore for some ~aesthetic~ antique Latin books, and I came across this beautiful 1889 tome:
This is going to look great on my “look at me I’m a pretentious twat” bookshelf.
But then… the first few sentences read:
“In 1875 delegates of the Oxford University Press proposed to me that I should undertake the compilation of a new Latin-English Lexicon, of something the same compass as the Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott. I acceded to the proposal in the expectation, for which I had at the time what appeared to be good grounds, that I should obtain adequate assistance in the work. My hopes were, however, disappointed.”
Ouch.
He goes on to detail how he spent 12 years working on A all by himself. Then the university asked him to publish what he had, so he threw together the rest of the book, clearly caring less and less the further he got in the alphabet - the entire Q section has four entries - and published… this.
Obviously this is going straight onto my pretentious twat shelf as a goofy conversation starter, but it is interesting and potentially useful if obscure Latin words are your thing. (Did you know “ramen” is a hapax legomenon meaning “a small chip or shaving”?)
So if you ever come across a really obscure Latin word or name that you can’t find anywhere, hmu… but only if it starts with A.
listen i consider myself an empathic person but after a certain point i get sick of other people’s problems. my friend is always talking about how the jewel-eyed skull on their mantlepiece is tormenting them w its sinister beauty and im over it. like dude i don’t want to talk about this anymore. get rid of the fucking skull
I feel I should clarify what I mean by 'some rando on twitter was using the 'enemy with an axe in their head' hieroglyph as a guy 'getting down at the club' with a visual:
I heard they're planning to maintain their levitation rites with autonomous constructs from now on, saying wizards are going to be totally obsolete within the season... so, ah, I'd invest in falling island insurance.
For visual clarification, last reblog has a screenshot of tags reading:
#ironically the castle has only stayed floating because Archmage Dave was holding all the institutional knowledge from the original team #and also maintaining the Levitation Widget which is crucial to maintaining the gyroscope spells that stop the castle from flipping over #anyway Dave was axed because he wasn't 'innovating' #because instead he spent all day every day maintaining the Widget #hope His Majestoy enjoys sitting in his throne while his house does a barrel roll
writers, you can and should be proud of your fic even if you personally are not satisfied with it. because even if you think it's "not good", you can be proud of the fact that you wrote it and it's something you created. you can be proud of the fact it's not ai.
repeat after me, it's something you put your soul and dedication in — and that's something ai could never achieve.
Great news team, I have been writing! Lateral news, it's Star Wars all the way down.
Nim (@nimeska or their SW sideblog @eternalimperius) and I have been shooting so so many ideas back and forth and this is one in particular that is Very crunchy. They've referenced it as their Starkiller!Cal AU in a recent post bc its very loosely based on a Cal as Vader's Apprentice scenario. but deeply fucked up in every way we could come up with <3 pro-tip; don't give a guy with severe attachment issues access to a child who can absorb the memories of other people.
Some of the stuff below is written by Nim, some of it by me but I've got clearance to post it in one chunk for coherence. Be advised, spoilers for Jedi Survivor ahead
I'll leave the real intro to the AU for Nim (so go follow them and Be Patient if you want the scoop) but the context for the roughly 4k below is that Cal, Trilla, and Reva have all escaped their various torment nexuses and have been working together to terrorize the Empire, having connected with Cere around the time of JFO. Bode is still a working At His JobTM, but is under the impression Cal was just another Inquisitor just a Bit Of A Freak About It. Under these assumptions, he makes the same comm call he did in JS canon as part of his gambit.
Here are some very bad ways Jedha 3 could have gone -
Bode scrambled to his feet, tossing the ruined jetpack from his back. A glance at it told him that a good chunk of it had been torn out by Cal's metal hand.
Said man steadily advanced on Bode, eyes wide with fury, and a snarl on his face. Bode hoped it was just the setting sun that painted the green eyes with a fiery glow.
"Why?!" There was something wrong with Cal's voice. As if it was reverberating, or like the sound had been multiplied. "Why Bode?"
"For this!" He yelled back, the compass in his hand.
Cal reared back as if slapped, and thankfully stopped dead. "We fought for that together. And you're just going to hand it to the Empire?"
"I'm not giving it to the Empire." Bode ignored the emphasis on the word together. Isn't that what he wanted? Cal attached?
Confusion swam in Cal's eyes, which were now most certainly more yellow than green. But any doubt was quickly dashed by a wave of intense hatred, that Bode could feel like a hammer through the Force.
"You killed Master Cordova! You... you killed Eno." Cal's voice choked on the man's first name, from grief and anger both.
That red-orange saber now pointed at Bode, and he started backing away. Slowly.
"Cal, you don't have time for this fight." This had to work. Because if it didn't, Bode wasn't sure he can beat the ex-Inquisitor, especially not with him so entrenched in the Dark Side.
But that's exactly why he would go back. He would not lose more people. Not his Sisters, not his Master, or his pet clone that he loved so much. Cal would go back, he would.
He had to.
"Something terrible is coming for that Archive, listen to your instincts." He didn't need to say it, surely Cal was more than aware how these operations go. "You know I'm right."
Cal froze, lightsaber still aloft. His face shifted from intense hatred, to confusion, and finally, it settled down into fear.
"What... have you done?" There was a slight quiver to his voice, and it was most certainly not because of anger this time.
Bode paused. That... expression. He'd never seen Cal fear anything. Let alone like this, with hopelessness and pure terror. Perhaps this was working better than he thought it would.
"If you want to keep your family safe, you get them out of there. Right now."
The decisive moment. Bode needed Cal to choose his attachments, instead of revenge.
From one moment to the next, Cal's face went blank, like a light gone out behind his eyes. Then something shifted in him, and Bode could track the progress clearly.
His posture straightened, standing to his full height, head held straight. He lowered his lightsaber to grasp it with both hands. And his face, his face turned cold and hateful, not like the previous passionate look. Even his breathing evened out, to an unnaturally perfect rhythm.
Bode barely had a second to dodge, before Cal was upon him, lightsaber swinging with the weight of the Force behind it.
He leaned out of the way of the clear Djem So strike, and blasted Cal back with Force. It was happy to be finally used, to be unleashed, so Cal went flying, despite the heavy Dark clouds twisting around him.
Cal landed in a crouch, and when he lifted his head, red strands in his face, there was no surprise on his face, no betrayal. Only hate.
"Jedi." He hisses as he stood up, entirely too composed.
And he didn't falter, not even for another second. He struck forward again, twirling his lightsaber behind him, shifting the movement into an aggressive overhead strike.
But even if Bode was surprised at the lack of reaction, he was ready this time, and blocked with Dagan's crimson lightsaber.
It was a clash of Djem So against Djem So, Bode's reverse grip against whatever hybrid version Cal was using.
It really shouldn't be this hard. Djem So was usually used by physically larger people, who had the strength to back up the aggressive style and force their opponent to crack under the weight it. Cal was not really either of those. But he fought exactly like that. Like he was taller and stronger than he actually was. And somehow it was working.
He pushed Bode back, with his slow, deliberate movements, each strike heavier than Bode's own, stronger than should have been possible. Bode found himself the faster one, which was a surprise, but not even that or his blaster seemed to make a difference.
What the hell? Bode tried to call out to Cal, to try to convince him one more time, but he didn't react to his name in the slightest.
Before he could try again, the distinct scream of a TIE fighter split the air between them. Except no, this one sounded different.
Cal froze, and despite the fact that Bode took the opportunity to shoot him in the shoulder, he didn't even twitch. He stared past Bode, that blank look on his face again.
The wind whipped at both their hair, as a TIE rose from below the canyon underneath them. A few thoughts flashed through Bode's head, about the ship's purpose here, but all of it immediately disappeared when he felt the oppressive, overwhelming Darkness drape over them. Because this was not Cal. Similar, very similar, but much stronger.
The TIE didn't even land before the owner of that presence disembarked, black metal boots hitting the ground, the distinctive breathing filling the silence of the battlefield.
Bode himself realized he stopped breathing. And when he glanced at Cal, he's not doing much better. Lightsaber lowered, eyes wide and paler than ever, absolutely terrified.
For a moment, no one spoke, and Bode took a few steps back, painfully aware of the red lightsaber in his hand.
Darth Vader didn't make a move. He was not even looking at Bode. All of his attention, clear in the Force, was on Cal.
"I see at least some of your training has remained with you, my Apprentice." Cal full body flinched. And Bode, he realized he just made a really, really, big miscalculation. "Kill this Jedi, submit, and I will consider letting you keep Junda's lightsaber."
Bode looked at Cal, eyes wide, feeling like every cell in his body has frozen over. From the fear, and from the Darkness circling them like a predator.
He had fucked up so much worse than he could have possibly imagined.
(And maybe it went like this-)
“Make me,” Cal whispered, eyes shining like coins in the Jedha sun and so pale his scars looked like they were bleeding fresh.
For a moment Bode thought maybe there was still a chance, that somehow the person Cal so badly wanted to be was going to win out over whatever training Vader had given. If Cal had been Vader’s own apprentice, surely he was good enough to stand half a chance in a fight? Surely Cal could last long enough for Bode to get away and, he couldn’t entirely crush the selfish hope, maybe Cal still cared enough to not want Bode to die at the hands of what had to be his own personal nightmare.
Even if Cal would be damning himself in the attempt, he might still do it. Cal wanted to be a Jedi again, right? That’s what Jedi did.
Whatever plan Bode started to thread together splintered apart as Vader laughed.
“You would willingly suffer the cost of such a favour.” Vader did not ask, though it should have been a question, just moved forward with a hiss of what Bode could only call satisfaction towards where Cal stood frozen, his ever-burning saber hanging perfectly still in his hands.
Cal’s jaw tightened fractionally and he titled his chin up slightly, even the fear draining out of him leaving behind only an empty, feral thing, unlike anything Bode had ever seen in a living sentient. He’d seen it on the dead, once or twice. “Make. Me.”
He needed to go. He needed to go right now, this was his only chance and the window was closing, Bode needed to leave right now-
Vader hissed something unintelligible past the roaring in Bode’s ears, and closed a hand around Cal’s throat. The Dark engulfing the peak erupted.
A dozen voices crying and shrieking and burningbeggingdying tried to claw their way past Bode’s ears and into his soul, coming up against his shields and scratching desperately at them. They wanted in, they wanted him, it was all so loud and it hurt unlike anything since Tayala’s death had, pulling any scrap of Light from the air and the strength from Bode’s knees and sending him crashing to the dirt.
There was no way to know how long the sea of Darkness lasted, there was only the endurance. Folding his presence so small inside himself the grasping hands that were not there couldn’t find him to take. He hid and hid and hid until finally he could breathe again. Not much, but enough.
Bode blinked the shadows from his eyes.
Across the plateau, impossibly still standing, were Vader and Cal.
Vader’s hand had moved, from Cal’s throat to his jaw in a gesture that could have been tender except Bode could see the bruises already forming beneath the black synthleather.
The hungry emptiness had been smoothed over from Cal’s expression, leaving something flat and deep like a cistern and there was something down there. There was a focus back in his eyes as he stared up at Vader, cold and sharp and quiet.
For the first time since he'd met him, Cal looked like he was at peace.
Bode inched backwards, using every second of his Shadow training to mask his presence from... whatever the actual fuck was happening over there. This was a mistake, this was all a mistake, he should have refused to take the job in the first place. Denvik was insane to think he could survive two ex-Inquisitors and Vader’s personal dog.
“Apprentice,” Vader purred and Bode’s spine turned to ice. He was so close to the edge, and then he could run for his ship. He was so close.
Cal’s eyelids flickered, just the once, and his voice when it came was as bloody as his saber. “Master.”
“Kill him.”
The Force closed around Bode’s chest and screamed.
(Or maybe, elsewhere-)
Reva and Merrin remained outside, holding the ground entrance. Trilla was helping Cere with the Archives, BD hanging off of her shoulder, trying to ignore the raw grief clawing at her throat.
It was so good, to reunite with Master Cordova. There was no baggage like with Cere, and he still loved her despite everything.
BD was making a steady low warbling noise on her shoulder. She didn't think about it. She couldn't.
The flames climbed steadily higher around them, and Trilla coughed on the smoke. If only she didn't despise wearing helmets.
Cere looked up, datadisc finally in hand, and raised a Force shield around them, blocking out the heat and the soot. She put a hand on Trilla's shoulder, grief clear in her eyes, but determination still set in her shoulders. Trilla leant into the touch and took the datadisc, passing it on to BD.
Then, they both paused, as the a Dark presence approached like clouds gathering behind the blast door.
It was... Cal?
Felt like Cal at his worst, but honestly Trilla expected that. She wasn't doing too hot either in that department, and she wasn't the one that was betrayed.
The grand door slid open with a loud groan, and behind it the flames fanned even higher than in the Archives.
But sure enough, Cal stood at the entrance. Relief washed over Trilla, and BD trilled from her shoulder. She moved forward, ready to go to him, but was cut off abruptly by Cere's arm in front of her.
Trilla shot her a confused look.
Cere just stared, and Cal didn't move an inch. Then Cere's expression turned from resolute to horrified. And it quickly became apparent why.
Because Darth Vader stepped out of the flames behind Cal. Trilla instinctively moved back.
No, she couldn't run, not without Cal.
"Cal!"
But he didn't react to his name. And when Darth Vader put a hand on his shoulder, grip too tight, and so so possessive, Trilla realize that wasn't Cal.
It was Nion.
(Maybe if they're lucky-)
Bode stumbled into the Archive, the half of his jetpack Cal hadn't managed to completely invert sputtering even more smoke into the fumes already trying to swallow the Archives whole.
This was a fucking terrible idea. Everyone alive here hated him, had both the means and motivation to kill him, and he'd done that on purpose.
Staying in the desert was somehow still worse.
Out in the desert, Cal might still be fighting Vader. Might still be fighting what Bode was starting to suspect was the keystone of every nightmare Cal had endured since the Purge. A nightmare he'd thrown himself at to buy Bode time, even after Bode killed his mentor and stole the Compass and personally called Cal's worst case scenario and all but hand-delivered him to, and fuck. Bode didn't know if he should hope Cal died outright in the fight or not, didn't know what Cal would prefer and it might already be too late-
Whatever happened out there was Bode's fault and it was too late for it all. Out in the stars, Kata was still waiting for him to come home. He had to go get her.
At least no one in the Archives knew Bode was Force Sensitive, so he still had that trick up his sleeve.
For now.
Explosions rattled the mountain, and Bode followed the trail as closely as the fire and smoke and shattered debris would let him. The worst of it was coming from the hangar, which was for the best because Bode had absolutely no idea how long Cal was going to be able to buy them and they needed to get off Jedha yesterday.
Bode sidled past the scorced remains of the interior access door and was immediately hit with a wave of muddied furious grieving Force that pressed him into the super-heated stone and forced what little air he had from his lungs.
"You," Trilla snarled, advancing with her lightsaber a shining star in hand and an unnatural light catching in her eyes. Not yellow like Cal's had been. Not yet, at least. "Where is he."
He tried to answer her, he really did, but the pressure on his throat was a lot, and without tapping into the Force there was really only so much he could do about it. Somewhere behind her was movement, the faded greens Reva tended to favour maybe, the stark white of Merrin's hair but he had less than a second to look for them before Trilla dragged his focus back to her.
"What have you done to him?" she shrieked, sliding the edge of her plasma blade right into place to replace the durasteel grip of the Force.
Bode coughed, couldn't help it with all the smoke and with the pressure lifted he let himself slide to his knees. Fragments of metal and wrong singed holes in his pants and nipped at his skin.
If Cal Kestis was lucky, he was out there cooling under the Jedha sun. Already dead. But even dead he knew his sisters better than anyone else in the galaxy and one of the last things he might ever do was give Bode advice about them. He had no choice but to take it.
"Vader caught us," Bode rasped, voice thick with smoke and tissue and regret. He swallowed past the shards of the lies he'd spent months telling. "Cal told me to run, to warn you. Said Vader has Nion, or will soon and that you need to go."
Trilla recoiled like he'd struck her, saber nicking a burn across the side of Bode's neck that was blinding for a split second before going numb. A bad sign, he thought distantly. "No! No he can't, he can't-"
The shapes in the smokes moved, the green-maybe-Reva turning sharply towards the narrow passage Bode had come from. "We can go to him. It might not be too late, there might still be time to get him back."
Along the walls, the flames roared higher, hotter. Bode tried to focus on breathing and seeing past the growing spots in his eyes.
"Reva, I do not wish to go without him any more than you, but we cannot stay any longer and we cannot land the Mantis back in the desert with the Empire's ships here. We must leave." A voice of reason, fierce yet focused, and shining like a restless grave. Merrin, surely, with a flash of optics at her shoulder.
"It's probably too late. Vader has always worked quickly," Trilla sounded hollow for a split second before turning back to the sand. A fist closed around Bode's collar and dragged him upwards to face her teeth. "You traitorous fool. You don't even know what you've done to him. Congratulations Bode Akuna, you've very likely killed Cal Kestis. I hope you-"
Cere parted the haze to reach her padawan, one hand catching her wrist. "Trilla, we need to leave. Cal bought us time from Vader, we can honour him by using it well."
"He killed them," Trilla's voice broke as she looked to her Master. "He killed them both."
"Which is why we're taking him with us. We will decide his fate, not the Empire," Cere said with all the laser-calm of the long dead Order. Her focus was on Trilla, but the waves of her presence crashed into Bode over and over, battering against his ragged-worn shields like a tide.
Trilla held firm for a long moment, then spat in the dirt and began to dragging him towards the Mantis. Everything about the movement made him want to vomit, and almost immediately, another pair of hands materialized at his other side and unclipped his holsters, before closing bruisingly tight over his arm. "That's three lives you owe us now, Akuna."
"Rest assured," the voice had to be Reva, there was a distinctly Imperial edge to the hatred in it. Kriff, had her gloves always been so hot? "We will collect."
"My daughter," Bode choked on the word but he needed them to hear it, to remember there was a kid out there, Kata, she needed him, Cal has said it would work- "Please, my daughter-"
His world disappeared into a web of icy-hot-whispering threads, all greengreengreen wrapped around his limbs, his chest, his neck, twisting, constricting-
Reality crashed back into place indistinguishable from getting a face full of ship deck.
The Mantis' deck, specifically.
After the taste of lateran steel, the second thing Bode regained awareness of was the burn in his lungs and the ache in his joints. However it was that Merrin normally teleported, it sure as hell wasn't that, because Bode would rather chew transparisteel than do that again.
Bode found himself wedged into a corner of the common area, his hands empty and his holsters stripped, not even a sticky detonator left in his pockets. It was almost insulting, the way they left him unbound, but between the four incredibly angry Force users, the audibly fuming latero, and the unusually silent droid with its optics fixed squarely on his face, Bode was not optimistic about his chances of overpowering everone here.
At least, not until they made it to hyperspace and someone let down their guard.
He tried to let himself drift into the not-quite-meditation that had gotten him through countless stakeouts, but every time he tried to slip into the familiar lull between the alertness and calm, the Force surged up to try dragging him down into the roiling Dark. Bode had never, even in the immediate aftermath of the Purge, struggled so much to ground himself and he wasn't even trying to touch the Force here, but something about the miasma of Vader, the void-black miasma Cal had been mimicking in their fight, stuck to him and forced him to remain uncomfortably aware of his exhaustion, his pain, the faint shake in his fingers from the adrenaline come down-
Whether he could explain it or not, there was no escape from his present for Bode here.
The silence was crushing. Somehow, a ship of people who hated him and not one could stand to say a word to him. Bode might have let it be, so long as they took him to Kata, so little else mattered except-
There was something still bothering him about Cal's last message. He'd been willing to die to warn his sisters about it, to give them a chance to escape it. Surely it had to be terrible and dangerous to be such a threat to the traitorous trio, and yet, scouring through his memory Bode still couldn't think of a single place he'd heard the word before.
"Hey," he asked the room. There was no good option who to direct the question to but if it could be a threat to Kata then he had to know, so he just threw it out there. "What is Nion?"
Reva barked out a jagged laugh and Trilla's face twisted. Merrin turned away from him, busying herself with one of the spiky plants in the display.
Cere, out of place in her dusty traditional robes on the potolliweave just looked sad.
"Not what, Akuna," Reva glared at him like he'd come back to the Archives to piss on Cordova's body. "Nion is, despite Vader's best efforts, still a person."
Now Bode wasn't stupid. Recent events aside, he knew how to put together an unlikely story from fragments. It was part of what made him so good at his job, what made him invaluable to Denvik and kept Kata safe, but this time he needed to be wrong. He needed to be wrong about how the pieces here slid into place because if he was right, if he had called Vader down onto them and he'd come for Cal personally but all his sisters were acting like he'd died-
"Nion," Trilla sneered with all the venom an Inquisitor reserved for Jedi. "Is the amalgamation of a dozen murdered Force users that at his worst answers only to Vader. At sixteen he couldn't be stopped by anything short of an ion cannon because he can hide his pain and fear from himself, and he wears the face of my brother."
Bode was going to be sick and this time it wasn't the concussion."You mean Cal-"
One of the branches in Merrin's hands snapped off. "Cal was Nion, before, but he has chosen to be Cal Kestis for years. He would choose Cal again, given a chance."
"Except Nion exists so long as he can drown every other poor bastard in his head," Reva went flat, all acid and alkali and melting steel. "Shoving down and controlling lives he remembers that aren't his is the only defining trait Nion even has."
Trilla's gaze bored into Bode, the sickly Dark leaching into them both with the Force of her rage and grief. "When we ran, 'Cal Kestis' was little more than a series of letters he had to relearn and redefine. A whole identity built from scraps. Nion never had a chance to fight back against a person that did not even exist.
"But this time, Nion will remember Cal. And Nion has never lost a fight quietly."
“Please, let him be soft. I know you made him with gunmetal bones and wolf’s teeth. I know you made him to be a warrior a soldier a hero. But even gunmetal can warp and even wolf’s teeth can dull and I do not want to see him break the way old and worn and overused things do. I do not want to see him go up in flames the way all heroes end up martyrs. I know that you will tell me that the world needs him. The world needs his heart and his faith and his courage and his strength and his bones and his teeth and his blood and his voice and his– The world needs anything he will give them. Damn the world, and damn you too. Damn anyone that ever asked anything of him, damn anyone that ever took anything from him, damn anyone that ever prayed to his name. You know that he will give them everything until there is nothing left of him but the imprint of dust where his feet once trod. You know that he will bear the world like Atlas until his shoulders collapse and his knees buckle and he is crushed by all he used to carry. Dear God, you have already made an Atlas. You have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules. You have already made so many heroes, and you can make another again. You can have your pick of heroes. So please, I beg you– he is all that I have, and you have so many heroes and the world has so many more. Let him be soft, and let him be mine.”
Goddddddd thinking about that narrative moment when something horrible is happening and the character who has been frantically trying to come up with a way to fix it and getting more and more frantic and panicky just—stops. Because. Oh. There’s the solution. They’re not getting out of this alive but like. It’s a solution for everyone else. Okay. Okay.
and!!!! like!!!! obviously this is delicious when you hit your Self Sacrifice Archetype with it, but honestly I think it's even chewier when you give it to, like. someone with a selfish streak. The one with some arrogance who's maybe not quite a team player. leans more towards loner. Give this moment to the one party member who has been shown to prioritize their own survival over everything else.
And then the eye-of-the-storm realization of "Oh. Huh. I am not making it to the end of the story. but everyone else is going to. Isn't it strange, that I'm not more upset?"
Shoutouts to characters that don't know the facade isn't their real self. Shoutouts to characters who put up a front so long ago that they have now forgotten it's all an act. Shoutouts to characters who no longer know who they are because they think they're being sincere. Shoutouts to performers so good they fool even themselves. Shoutouts to characters who fall for their own lies.
dededos
baratheonpilled
blakekathryn
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
