argumate:

argumate:

For me the most jarring anachronism in Lord of the Rings is when Sam looks up into the night sky over Mordor and sees a single star and is filled with hope at the idea of beauty that is forever beyond the reach of shadow and wait a second stars? like, are they the same kind of stars we have, big flaming balls of fusing hydrogen and assorted elements how far away are these stars? do they have planets around them? do those planets have elves on them? why can’t Sauron reach the stars with the power of the one ring?

theunitofcaring said:

do you want the answer though

eh, fuck it

Tolkien had two conflicting ideas on the cosmology: one was that Middle-earth’s Sun and Moon were fruit drawn by chariots by Maiar (minor deities: Sauron is one) in the vaguely-Hellenistic tradition that his deities are trying to pretend they aren’t borrowed from

and the stars were set in the sky by Varda Elentári, one of the Valar (less minor deities)

(when he was feeling sufficiently bad about how unCatholic this is he considered them all sort of archangels)

but then he also wanted Middle-earth to be a legendary history of our own world

and he was aware that the Sun-and-Moon as glowing fruits of the long-destroyed Trees of Valinor didn’t work with that, so he made some vague gestures at the end of his life at, like, actual cosmology with stars as flaming balls of gas and stuff.

but haha it gets worse from here because the specific star Sam is looking at is neither a magic Vala-designed star nor a ball of flaming hydrogen it is a Silmaril, which Lúthien and Beren stole from Morgoth’s crown and which passed to their son Dior on their death and his daughter Elwing on his death and to her husband, Eärendil, on her attempted suicide trying to keep it out of Fëanorian hands

he uses the brilliance of the Silmaril to evade the mists and enchanted isles the Valar had set around Valinor to keep refugees of the west from reaching it during the war, and he reaches Valinor

and for his courage he is rewarded, the Valar agree to intervene in the war

but for his hubris he is punished with being never again allowed to set foot on Middle-earth

so he circles the heavens in a flying ship, with the Silmaril on his brow

and that is the star Eärendil which is actually from an old English poem Tolkien found striking and which is a pain to Earendel, the Morning Star

aka the planet Venus, not a star at all

so in the mystical cosmology, the stars are magic and the bright, close, star that follows the orbit of our planet Venus is Eärendil and the Silmaril

and in the non mystical cosmology Sam’s just looking at Venus which still isn’t a star

either way they’re beyond Sauron’s reach because Eärendil has seen some shit and definitely flies out of range of One-Ringing

and the planet Venus is 24million miles away (this is the only fact in this response which I looked up)

other fun facts: Elrond is Eärendil’s son and Arwen, who is called Undomiel, is Eärendil’s granddaughter. Undomiel means “Evening Star”. But, famously, the planet Venus is both the morning star and the evening star – early astronomers didn’t realize they were the same thing

the Silmaril in question is the same one whose diluted light Galadriel captures in the phial she gives Frodo, and even in that form it is powerful enough to repel Shelob because the Silmarils are like a megafucking big deal

Middle-earth actually had stars 8000 years before it had a sun; the Elves awakened beside the waters of lake Cuivienen in total darkness except for the stars

because the Valar hadn’t gotten their shit together and the only place in Middle-earth with lighting was Valinor

the Elves were p chill about this and never really got to liking the sun, while Tolkien notes that Men were v enthused about it

okay I’m done now I’m sorry

you have brought me such joy

forcearama:

legobiwan:

forcearama:

Anakin and Palpatine look like they partied too hard. 

Palpatine: That is the *last* time we invite Kenobi to a party.

Anakin: mmmmrrrgh

Meanwhile, on the lower levels:

Kenobi: “Amateurs.”

#OBI-WAN’S A FUCKIN SAVAGE#he can drink anyone under the table#he uses the Force to metabolize the alcohol more efficiently (via @punk–kenobi)

Obi-Wan: [text] Good morning Anakin! 😊
Obi-Wan: Did you forget about our morning meeting? It started 30 minutes ago.
Obi-Wan: Anakin? Everything OK?
Anakin: jfc stop making my phone vibrate the SOUND nooooo ur a monster
Anakin: i cant come in today
Anakin: tell the council that u tried to kill me
Obi-Wan: What are you talking about?
Anakin: r u fuckin serious
Anakin: even the chancellr was puking by the time our taxi dropped him off
Anakin: how are u alive today u drank so much more than i did
Obi-Wan: Actually I feel quite well, now that you mention it. Do you need me to bring you something?
Anakin: YES fries and make me pancakes and also bring me a new BODY because i think this one is broken now and its all ur fault
Anakin: wtf was in those shots

aniseandspearmint:

kyraneko:

rosestonewrites:

marloviandevil:

nautolanshenanigans:

betterbemeta:

steela-gerrera:

I’m just imaging an AU where Padme’s pregnancy didn’t have to be a secret and Anakin is trying to pick out names for the baby so he asks his men for ideas, and the clones, of course, throw out names like

“Zapper!”

“Sling!”

“Bomber!”

“Kickback!”

Anakin is internally screaming, but he doesn’t want to insult them by saying those are terrible names so he’s just like, “…thanks, guys.”

even better is if after the kids are born, there are still clones around for security and such and when they’re old enough to talk they know they were given names by their parents, but clones see those names as like. your technical/official ID. not as your actual personal name. so they talk to these little kids who of course love preposterous names and that’s how leia is also named POWERFIST

I’ve reblogged this before but imagine Luke being dubbed “Cinnamon Roll” by the clones

Powerfist and Cinnamon Roll Skywalker. Deal.

OH MY GOD so i was just gonna tagspiral about this but I have Too Many Thoughts so i’m gonna actually write real text for once

So: here we have Powerfist Leia Skywalker and Cinnamon Roll Luke Skywalker.  They probably spend a lot of time with the clones, right?  Because if Padme and Anakin aren’t in a Secret Relationship then Anakin probably doesn’t fall, so the war doesn’t end the way it does in canon – actually, shit, I forgot about 66.  So let’s say Palps tries to recruit Anakin anyway because he’s super-powerful and Palps wants that on his side, but Anakin betrays him to the Council and Order 66 doesn’t happen.

But just because Palpatine tripped and fell into about a dozen lightsabers on his way to his jail cell doesn’t mean the war’s over.  The Separatists are fucked, they can’t exactly claim that Sidious made them do it, so they’re going to try their hardest not to lose.  So Anakin’s still spending a lot of time out in the field, and Padme’s still got Senate stuff to do.  And they probably both already had serious business security details, since somebody needs to be around whenever Anakin decides to do something really fucking stupid without backup (he usually manages without backup, but Obi-Wan, Padme and every clone friend of Anakin’s agree that they’d rather have someone on him anyway), and Padme’s a significant target for the Separatists because a) she’s pretty well-connected in the Senate and b) Palps was hoping he could kill her off to get Anakin to fall.  Which would’ve ended pretty badly for him but Palpatine clearly doesn’t understand love so he wouldn’t have realised that.

SO.  Anakin gets called off to spearhead some campaign somewhere, Padme has to go to the Senate, and who’s left to look after Powerfist and Cinnamon Roll?  (Padme finds these names hilarious.)  It’s the clones.

“Okay,” Rex says, no longer quite so angry about being grounded while his blaster wound heals.  “Watch carefully.  This is how you hold a blaster, okay?”

Luke and Leia are fascinated.

Padme, who entered politics at a frankly ridiculous age and was embroiled in her first war at the age of fourteen, isn’t all that upset when she finds out.  Okay, she’d prefer it if the weaponry lessons waited until the kids were older, but considering who their parents are, they’re pretty tempting kidnap targets so she’d rather they knew how to look after themselves.  And they’re so cute doing their unarmed combat lessons!

Anakin – Anakin is very protective of his tiny children.  HE’S SEEN SOME SHITTY STUFF IN THE GALAXY, OKAY, HE JUST WANTS TO WRAP THEM IN COTTON WOOL AND HIDE THEM SOMEWHERE UNTIL THEY’RE EIGHTEEN.  He is not impressed when he finds out.  Every stupid, dangerous thing he ever did as a child is running through his head on a loop.  He did so many stupid things.

“Not that many,” Padme says, patting his shoulder.

Pod races,” Anakin says hoarsely.  “Blowing up Trade Federation droid ships.  Racing speeders.  Sticking my hands into droid innards.”

“That isn’t that dangerous,” Padme says, frowning.

“What if I’d electrocuted myself?” Anakin demands.  “I could have died so many ways, Padme, why did I pass this on to my children, oh god.”

Padme looks over at Rex for support.

“He’s never told you any of the really wild war stories, has he,” Rex says, deadpan.  “They’re too short to fly fighters, but we can start them on acrobatics soon, they’ll have an easier time if they’ve already had practice not throwing up the first time one of them decides to spin the ship they’re flying.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Padme says, wondering what Anakin’s stories are if they aren’t the wild ones.

Somewhere, Obi-Wan Kenobi just broke a rib laughing.

It’s canon (or was) that as a child Leia had a fluorescent pink alien kitten-type animal named All-Terrain Attack Vehicle, so I can see her being totally on board with the awesome names.

Now consider: regular OT universe, lots of the clones went AWOL after Order 66 and many of them found their way into the Rebellion. The Rebellion was thus influenced by their culture, including this habit of giving out names like this.

Clones around Leia Organa when she’s growing up.

Clones teaching her to shoot, to fight, to fall, to fly. One of them finds her crying over some momentary childhood upsetness at age five and cheers her up by teaching her to hold a blaster. And then to shoot it. And then to hit what she’s aiming at.

At six, she gets into her first fistfight with another child, a spoiled brat of Alderaan’s nobility, and comes out of it with a bloody nose and a couple broken knickles because she doesn’t know how to punch correctly. Bail gives her a scathing lecture on deportment and courtesy and keeping her temper and how a princess must behave, given edge with his own terror that she’s taking after her other father. The clone who finds her, sulking in the mechanics bay, stung and furious, teaches her how to fight.

At eight, she wants to learn to fly, and Bail, visions of Anakin dancing in his head, dissuades her. It’s the most natural thing in the world to go to the clones and ask to be taught.

At ten she announces that she doesn’t want to go into politics, she wants to be a clone. When her mother points out, gently, that she is the Crown Princess and has responsibilities, she suggests they find girls who look like her to be the Princess for her when she’s busy. She has no idea why both her parents go white at the suggestion.

At eleven, fresh out of another fight–she wants to go help the Rebellion directly, she wants to fight, she wants to go places, be out in the thick of things, and her parents want her to study and do princess things, they want to keep her safe–she goes to the clones with several years of pent-up questions.

The clones are ones who spent years fighting beside Anakin Skywalker, and almost as much time spent running interference for, and pretending not to know about, Anakin’s secret relationship with Padmé Amidala. They didn’t know she was pregnant, but between the piloting skills and the temper and the recklessness and the elder Organas’ reaction to her decoy idea, they can guess.

One of them brings out a medkit and they run a genetic test on a drop of Leia’s blood. They’ve seen the readout of Anakin’s displayed so many times they’ve practically committed it to memory, and the relationship is obvious even to those not medic-trained. Now Leia has a second set of parents, and a host of stories about them, and the personal loyalty of every clone trooper in the Rebellion–General Skywalker’s daughter.

When she’s twelve, a thought occurs to her, and it’s the clones, not her parents, that she asks, “if my father was a Jedi, am I Force-sensitive too?”

Some clone out working support for the Rebellion’s secret operatives gets in touch with Fulcrum for her.

A couple days after Leia’s thirteenth birthday, Ahsoka Tano makes planetfall on Alderaan and is snuck by the clones (”Good to see you, Commander,”) into the mechanics bay to meet Leia. By the time Bail and Breha figure out what Leia’s disappearing for this time, Leia’s already made her first lightsaber and is working on her second.

When Darth Vader tracks down Ahsoka Tano, Ahsoka Tano is not alone.

“Who are you?” he asks, confused by the presence of this fierce child–his grand-apprentice, as it were, glaring at him from behind two lightsabers (blue, for her father, and green, for her teacher) like he’d offended her grievously in the past. (He’s never really met Princess Leia Organa, beyond an occasional presence at the same Imperial event, but she knows quite a lot about him. She isn’t going to run for Senate, but she is going to rebel. She does her research.)

“Killshot,” is what she says.

Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker, and Anakin Skywalker knows clone naming customs when he hears them. “A Force-sensitive clone?” is what he asks. (The name was gifted to her at nine, when she beat the combat flight simulator on its highest mode eleven times in a row.)

Leia beams. It’s the best compliment anyone could give her. “Yes,” she says, and brings up her blades.

*claps and cheers*

eurovision alignments

Lawful ballad: Typically kind of boring, but qualifies because you can’t NOT vote for it or else you’ll look like a jerk. Probably about love. Or peace.
Neutral ballad: Trying to be a power ballad but the singer just isn’t that good. Maybe about love, but not in a guilt-trippy kind of way. Sounds better in studio.
Chaotic ballad: Strong, overly dramatic power ballad. Either the best thing you’ve ever heard or just way too extra. There is no in between.
Lawful schlager: Upbeat and really generic, like it’s trying to make sure it qualifies. Probably written by someone from Sweden.
Neutral schlager: Passes for a normal pop song, at least mostly. Incredibly radio-friendly. Gets a lot of jury votes.
Chaotic schlager: Not quite a joke entry, but could be mistaken for one if you squint. Lots of glitter and exposed skin. Why people think Eurovision is gay.
Lawful crazy: The staging and outfits and pretty much everything looks like a fever dream, but the entry still resembles a song. 10/10 would dance to while drunk.
Neutral crazy: Any entry that just screams, „hey, we REALLY don’t feel like hosting next year.“ Almost never qualifies. Just as planned.
Chaotic crazy: Looks and sounds like a shitpost, because they put serious effort into making sure it looks and sounds like a shitpost. Gets a fuckton of televotes.