— THE GARDENER

indie Jacen Solo / Darth Caedus of the Star Wars franchise

[visionhaunted]

And he could finally recognize that the boy he had been, the optimistic, joke-spinning, animal-loving, kidnap-prone Jedi boy, was dead, slain on the same mission that had claimed his brother, Anakin. At last, understanding what had happened, Jacen did not miss his younger self.

independent and private rp blog for Jacen Solo of the Star Wars franchise, EU / Legends timeline default, written by Hope ( she / they ), 18+

— CARRD

[visionhaunted]

currently in the process of revamping my multi so jacen is moving over there catch me @astraldestiny

[visionhaunted]

you know, I think Jacen has nerve damage in his hands due to what happened during his year as a prisoner of the Vong and then during his escape on Coruscant, especially during his escape on Coruscant where he burned his own hands with force lightning. He deals with a lot of pain and struggles gripping things tightly every now and then though he refuses to acknowledge it, making up for it with the force. Hes got a fine enough grip on the force that no one notices and he is in no danger of something like losing his grip on his lightsaber. The only one who knows he experiences any chronic pain is Tenel Ka.

[visionhaunted]

one of the top iconic Jacen moments is how he was so skilled and insane during the Vong war that the Vong started theorising he was a vessel for Yun Yammka, the Vong God of War and also at the same time Onimi theorising Jacen was instead a vessel for Yun Shuno, the Goddess of Forgiveness.

[visionhaunted]

I love going on about how OP Jacen is but let it be known that he only won the fight against his aunt Mara because he cheated.

[visionhaunted]

sometimes I remember Jacen claimed he was doing totally fine after the death of his little brother and then years later he named a star destroyer after him and that ship became his primary home and he both loathed and loved that place and no theres definitely nothing more to see here.

[without-ado]

Micromelo undatus; an uncommon species of small sea snail (x)

[visionhaunted]

   Jacen’s fall to the dark side this is a repost from my multi bc I felt the need to have it here.

  Let me start this by underlining the fact these changes happen over a span of 14 years and none of this happened over night ( which seems to be something the fandom often accuses the writers of for some reason ). Jacen wasn’t born bad and he was a good person for the first +20 years of his life but his fall to the dark was a long time coming by the time it happened officially in 40 ABY. 

   Most of Jacen’s bigger troubles obviously started with his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Vong in 27 ABY when he is 18 years old. The Vong and Vergere especially break Jacen over the course of a whole year. He is isolated often, tortured almost daily at first and CONSTANTLY confronted with Vergere’s mind games. Three things happen at the same time here: Jacen is dealing with losing trust in the animals that used be his friends ( thanks to the Voxyn ), losing his humour after being forced to face horrible things and suffering the loss of his younger brother Anakin — and Anakin's death especially proves to be one of the WORST things Jacen experiences as he cannot escape the reminders of what it was like to see and feel Anakin die; first in traitor:

Remembering Vergere brings him to the voxyn queen, and the voxyn queen sends him slithering back down a despair-greased slope to Anakin's corpse. Anakin's corpse floats on a burning lake of torment far deeper than anything that can happen to Jacen's body.

     and then years later during exile:

But Anakin had been fatally wounded on this mission. Had died. The children of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo had suddenly gone from three to two. Had suddenly stopped being invincible, invulnerable, immortal. Suddenly there was no room in his life, no room in his universe for humor. And from that time on animals had all seemed to wear the faces of voxyn. They were no longer his friends.

    In an instant, Jacen loses the things that made him him and goes through yet another identity crisis, a desperate search to figure out WHO he really is, a search that has marked his entire childhood already and has become a frustrating never ending cycle for him ( and would go on to influence him into accepting the name and identity of Caedus years later ).

   In the first few months during his imprisonment he tries holding onto his teachings, onto the knowledge that he cannot allow himself to fall into the dark but then he feels another thing adding to the pain he already experiences: He feels his TWIN edging closer to the dark in despair and he shares her rage through the twin bond, a bond he decides he has to ignore eventually to safe her from the pain he is feeling:

But he cannot let himself touch [Jaina] through the Force; he cannot ask her to share his torment--she is in so much pain already that to suffer his would only drive her darker yet. And so even his twin bond has become a source of anguish.

    Jacen has always been a very lonely person and mostly shared his emotions with his sister and no one else, not even his own parents. This moment is one of the first that marks a long history of decisions that eventually tore the twins apart and pushed Jacen closer to the dark. They both start trying to keep each other out of the bond to avoid HURTING the other further and end up isolating themselves in the process. Jaina eventually recovers from this, Jacen does not. Jacen goes on to shoulder all of his torment on his own starting with his torture at the hands of Vergere and ending with his guilt over what he believes he has to do as Caedus years later.

   The year Jacen spend with Vergere very much completely broke apart his view on the world and himself. Vergere declared Jacen Solo is dead and then proceeded to form Jacen into what she WANTED him to be. A man of action, someone who made decisions, something Jacen has been struggling with his entire life. During this time Jacen goes from considering her his jailer and torturer, wanting to kill her ... to considering her a supporter, a friend. It is a very concerning change Jacen goes through as he starts to ACCEPT Vergere’s philosophies. One specific lesson from her eventually becomes a horribly twisted foundation of Jacen’s own ideology:

"What distinguishes a flower from a weed is only-- and exactly-- this: the choice of the gardener."

   Vergere wants Jacen to make the choice, BE the gardener who decides who is a flower and who is a weed. At first Jacen is dedicated to proving her wrong, to showing her everyone is a flower, that he will save everyone, kill no one. The longer he is trapped alone with Vergere the less he can hold onto that belief and eventually this argument between him and Vergere finds its climax in Jacen killing a group of Vong in pure anger, an action she chastises him for while not offering him a BETTER way of releasing his anger, resulting in Jacen being trapped in a loop of knowing there is darkness in him and struggling to find a safe outlet for it, further fueling his already at times incapacitating paranoia.

   All of what Jacen experienced during his year away would go on to shape his view of the world forever and not always in a good way although it must be said he has possessed traits that affected his philosophies negatively from the start; most notably his stubbornness and pride:

Mara's look turned grave. "We must help [Jacen]," she said. "If he'll let us. He hasn't always been cooperative that way."

    And this conversation between Luke and Mara marks one of Jacen’s worst habits: His reluctancy to accept any kind of HELP. Jacen has always, always struggled with his pride, with the idea that he knows what he is doing. This kind of thinking almost got him killed at the start of the war and it would continue to get him into trouble many years later when he starts making decisions over people’s heads because he ‘ knows whats best ’. It becomes the most defining trait of his work and his thought process, the idea he knows what is best for EVERYONE. The more he slides into the dark the worse his arrogance becomes. 

   At first he mainly got himself into trouble with this kind of thinking but we see very soon after his return from captivity that he has learnt the WRONG lesson from Vergere as he uses the force to see into Tahiri’s head without her permission to try figure out what is bothering her. He acts out of a good reason ( trying to help Tahiri find peace and making her feel like part of the family ) but goes about it in a terrible way and justifies it to himself as a reasonable action and THAT becomes an ugly theme in Jacen’s actions later on.

   Jacen’s belief that he is always right has good sides and bad sides. He insists the war with the Vong has to end PEACEFULLY and it does thanks to his help but his success in this situation only further fuels his idea that the force is guiding him and that means he cannot be wrong. He goes on his five year journey and returns home early when the ‘ force ’ tells him to go despite his teacher insisting he shouldn’t abandon his studies early or risk having to deal with the consequences. He ignores the order and his own twin to go through with a war that he is CONVINCED is going to stop a bigger disaster down the line, all because he had a vision about it and at this point he has allowed his ego to become so big that he blatantly ignores anyone trying to talk him out of his ideas. 

    His five year journey that follows the war with the Vong is driven by the desperate need to find out once and for all who he really is and what his purpose is. It is important to note that his journey didn’t set off his development into Caedus, if anything it only made it easier for him to further fall back into ALREADY established bad habits such as letting his fear guide him and putting his pride and search for identity over everything else. Jacen didn’t return from his journey suddenly a changed man. The foundation for this change had already been laid YEARS prior thanks to Vergere and the struggles he dealt with long before he even met Vergere. 

    Things take an even darker turn when Jacen’s daughter is born. Jacen loves his daughter, more than anything else and when she is threatened by Tenel Ka’s grandmother and her people, who want a week old child dead, Jacen lets his anger guide him and lashes out, putting a brutal end to the attack on his daughter and first mind rubbing Ben so he won’t be able to accidentally reveal anything about Allana that could put her in danger and then almost killing Ta’a Chume for raising her hand against the girl. Jacen JUSTIFIES his behaviour ( both to himself and Tenel Ka ) as necessary, as almost too nice a reaction to such despicable behaviour. Tenel Ka doesn’t exactly discourage him, being worried for their child herself and with the two of them being the only people to know about Allana and her parentage, there is no one to disagree with them, to make Jacen see that he went TOO FAR and is on a dangerous path straight to the dark side now. His constant worry over her also helps make his paranoia much, much worse over the next few years.

    By the time Jacen’s family realises his behaviour has become incredibly worrying it is already too late. Jacen has already decided they’re wrong, he is right and that is how it has to be. Afraid to lose everything ( his daughter, his identity, his pride ... ), Jacen REFUSES to admit he is wrong and with years of only himself and at best Tenel Ka and at worst Vergere ( and eventually Lumiya ) being there to judge his actions ... he passed the point of no return years ago. 

TL;DR: Jacen wasn’t ‘ destined ’ to fall but his fall also didn’t come out of nowhere. His long established tendency to refuse help, listen to his own paranoia instead of reason, his struggles with his anger and identity and both self inflicted and situational isolation from others, especially his twin, set him up for failure. Jacen was heavily traumatised and refused to admit it. Eventually the pressure became too much and something had to give.

[defectedsources]

𝚅𝙰𝚁𝙸𝙾𝚄𝚂 " 𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙵𝚁𝙾𝙽𝚃𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 " 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂!

below is a list of starters from both sides of the conversation , with prompts geared toward scenes involving some sort of confrontation. prompts rage from friendly to not so friendly. please consider following for more prompts and please do not steal!

❛ i can't believe you hid this from me. ❜

❛ that's it. we need to talk about this. right here. right now. ❜

❛ don't see how we can get around talking about this anymore. ❜

❛ you can't just keep avoiding me! ❜

❛ i'm not leaving until we talk about this. ❜

❛ come on just . . . talk to me. ❜

❛ all this time . . . and it was all a lie? ❜

❛ i trusted you. ❜

❛ did you think i wasn't going to notice? ❜

❛ start talking. now. ❜

❛ when are you going to stop lying to me? ❜

❛ i just wanna talk. ❜

❛ can we talk about this? please? ❜

❛ i came to talk this out. ❜

❛ you and i can work this thing out. ❜

❛ enough lies. tell me the truth! ❜

❛ i just wanna know what happened. ❜

❛ you can tell me. ❜

❛ just . . . start from the beginning. ❜

❛ are we gonna talk about this like grownups? ❜

❛ can you just be an adult about this for once?! ❜

❛ i didn't think it was gonna be so hard to talk about it. ❜

❛ i don't wanna talk about it. ❜

❛ i said leave it alone! ❜

❛ it's not that simple. ❜

❛ can we just . . . not talk about this right now? ❜

❛ i didn't want to see you get hurt. ❜

❛ okay fine. you wanna talk about it? here it is , ❜

❛ i kinda hoped you would just ignore it. ❜

❛ okay , fine just . . promise you won't get mad. ❜

❛ i don't wanna lie to you. ❜

❛ i wish it were that simple. ❜

❛ we passed the talking stage a long time ago. ❜

❛ the truth is more painful. ❜

❛ the beginnings , still a little hazy. ❜

❛ stop saying i'm not taking this seriously! ❜

[organatwins]

Darth Caedus and Anakin Solo such a crazy fucking dynamic. Btw.

[organatwins]

You are my dead baby sibling, and I feel the weight of your death on my lungs every day, the grief practically choking me out with its tiny hands shaped just like yours. and I blame myself for it to the point that i name an imperial dreadnaught after you (and then refuse to let underlings call it by its name in my presence becus it makes me so so so angry to hear over and over again, to the point that i resent it and you and i hate and i hate and i) but the thing its not even my fault you died! But it is my fault when i take in your devastated and grieving best friend as a sith apprentice and ruin her life so much further. It's my fault that I force our sister to be a only child of her own making ("we don't have time for this jaina..." "then just DIE ALREADY!") And It's my fault that our mother has one child left. It's not my fault you died, but it's my fault that you haunt me. Please go's never stop haunting me. I have to remember you, I have to make sure this all mattered . (It's all for absolutely nothing. I will die soon, and we will not meet. I could never find peace enough to find you.)

[antiqueanimals]

Elements of Zoölogy: A Text-book. Written by Sanborn Tenney. 1875.

Internet Archive

[userdocumentary]

Wild City: Secret World (2019)

[alootus]

carefully she listened to his aches, hoping to help him find a solution to the heavy matters preventing him from enjoying the kind of confidence he might've originally been seeking for; forcing anyone do things without their permission or against their will would be considered an act of 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐲, and that wasn't what padmé believed jacen here truly was after. what was right and true to him could be a prison to somebody else, his view of the future a living nightmare to a tad more tender soul — realizing that might help him closer to his goals in a less harmful way. she studied the emotional responses in him, the way his shoulder line relaxed eventually and how the edges of what she'd thought was bottled up frustration softened via an exhale. with a smile on her lips, his grandmother moved one hand from her lap to rest on his back, drawing soothing circles to his shirt with her palm, hoping to channel some comfort and willingness to understand through a simple, gentle touch.

❝ most of us living beings are selfish creatures, my dear. many prefer speaking rather than listening and that brings up conflicts. navigating our way through them isn't always easy but i am positive that you if anyone can figure it out. sometimes, all it takes is one right person to hear what you have to offer. after that, the rest can flow ahead a lot smoother. ❞ there was a pause as she 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝. ❝ try not to convince a large audience at once, but divide your cause and intentions into smaller pieces. go for the root reasons behind your point of view, explore them from different angles. study those you wish would pay more attention to your arguments. getting your word through is about so much more than having a handful of listeners in front of you. ❞

a smile tempted her lip and she tilted her head to the side, now resting both hands back in her lap again. ❝ why won't you try with me, right here ? ❞ surely there'd be no harm in hearing more of his thoughts. ❝ what is it you think the galaxy needs to correct its balance ? ❞

[visionhaunted]

It was easy to get lost in the force, to drown in its call and be CONSUMED by it rather than channeling it the way he had been taught to. The future always beckoning him to face it, to reach out for it while his uncle's warnings echoed in his head. The future is always in motion. Trying to grasp it and pull it into the now would only blind him to what really mattered. It was a fool's erand. So why had the force pushed him in this direction if it was going to doom him? He felt like his whole world was threatening to break apart over his head, even his wise uncle unable to see what was threatening to overcome him because he did not see things his way, because he did not UNDERSTAND — it was only his grandmother's warmth, her endless patience and understanding and her wisdom spared from being coloured by notions of the force that divided him and his fellow Jedi now that prevented him from simply drowning.

He listened eagerly, her hand on his back grounding him in the here and now, allowing him to stop and THINK for a moment without the feeling of standing at the edge of an unknowable abyss that no one else seemed to notice. " I — I don't know where to start with that. Everything feels so large, how can I focus on a smaller bit of it? How can I focus on individuals like this? " And she gave him the simple response to try right here, right now, with her. There was no harm in this exercise, right? If it could help him figure out his problem, it could be PERFECT.

He straightened, trying to shake the unease and doubt that had gripped him earlier. If he was to present his concerns he was going to present them with as much gravitas as he possibly could even if his audience consisted ' only ' of his own grandmother. " Politics are once again threatening to divide the public from the Jedi. We are sorely needed but rarely listened to. I can ... feel something big on the horizon. " He paused for a moment, unsure if explaining this particular notion would benefit an audience of non force users. But it was relevant was it not? " Something we need to pay attention to because the force is guiding our attention towards it but we cannot focus on it if the politicans attempt to meddle in Jedi business every five seconds. My uncle ... our grand master — he bows to the politicians, to your people's rules. I say it is time we return to even ground. We need to focus on becoming EQUALS again if we are to analyse whatever it is the force is trying to warn us of. "

[reawakcn]

"It's... not so much that you're inviting war, Jacen." But finding that balance, finding the path weaving in the center... seems to be a harder thing for the younger boy to grasp. "More that if you can't plant your feet and push back when you have to, you'll find yourself bowled under the speeder. A soft target, the first person to hold a vibroblade to because words alone will not stop someone else hellsbent on war."

Eryn exhaled, boot scuffing through the leaf litter and the sand of Yavin IV. "It may just be that isn't your path, or your style, because Force only knows some people aren't built even for the kind of violence one needs to withstand as a shield alone. I see no reason why you shouldn't still consider it, if only to understand others who do."

[visionhaunted]

" I know how to stand my ground and I'd like to do it without violence. " He had a feeling he did not quite understand what Eryn was trying to TEACH him here, but was unsure what exactly he was missing about her point. " I can use the force defensively to make sure people don't get the chance to fight me. Is that not what we are supposed to do? "

He inadvertently shook his head at her assumption that he may not be suited for this kind of work in the field. He was good at it and that was what worried him MOST. He was starting to overtake even his twin sister during lightsaber training. What if all he was good for was violence?

[visionhaunted]

plotting call mayhaps?

[torridturncoat]

god (self-diagnosed)

[life-on-our-planet]

The Sahara can reach temperatures of over 100°F, but the fennec fox’s ears act like an air conditioning system by cooling the blood in a network of veins. BBC Earth