#BUT a truly good writer would do efficient + respectful and try. literally can pull a he she they here. there are three slots avaliable.

[tamingicarus]

this is the most embarrassing writing i’ve read in my life

[bedlamsbard]

All right, reactions to Mando 2.05, “The Jedi”, in...semi-coherent form. Spoilers, obvs. I hated this episode, so keep scrolling now if you don’t want to see negativity.  This is not in any kind of order except stream-of-conscious.

again, I reiterate, spoilers.

again, I reiterate, this is REALLY negative.

Rosario Dawson...yikes.

how...did Bo-Katan know that Ahsoka was on Corvus? are they in contact? since when? Ahsoka seems to have been on Corvus for long enough to be a nuisance to the Magistrate (Morgan Elsbeth), but normally Ahsoka is very efficient and she just...really does not seem to be here? I did not get the impression she was planning on sticking around for any period of time.

(the same could be true for Frog Lady and Bo-Katan on Trask several episodes back. that wasn’t a convert, that was three Mandalorians hanging around the port in cloaks. I guess they could be doing that on the regular, but? would the Empire not then be more worried about being attacked by Mandalorians?)

there was only ever a very, very slim chance that I was going to be happy with any translation of Ahsoka from animation to live action.  I am on record as thinking that animation is the medium for Star Wars and that live action is always going to be a weaker medium than animation and that a lot of things that can be done in animation just cannot be translated to live action in any meaningful form.  I knew Ahsoka’s fighting style couldn’t translate to live action convincingly (here’s what I said about the mo-capped duel in TCW); it never occurred to me that they couldn’t pull off TOGRUTA given that Shaak Ti, you know, exists, and also there are so many excellent Ahsoka cosplayers.

(Consider KM Creations’ excellent silicone lekku (S7), which have beautiful movement; the cosplayer behind that is CallMeSnips and her epilogue prototype is from SWCC is in there somewhere.  I think Rei Kennex’s are latex (you can tell they don’t have much movement) but at least they’re the right length.  I think Ahsoka94′s are also latex (again with the movement); this is her Mortis vision grown-up Ahsoka.)

AND YES, THE LEKKU/MONTRALS WERE A DEAL-BREAKER FOR ME.

I feel very “you have made your bed and now you have to die in it” about that -- apparently the reasoning is for stunts and movement, but for me here’s the thing: her lekku length wasn’t optional.  This is not the equivalent of changing a hair style, which some people seem to think (believe me, I have read so many hot takes); this is like...I’m trying to think of a good comparison.  Like putting Peter Mayhew or Joonas Suotamo in a wig because Chewie’s head was too hard for the actor to see out of, or giving them normal human hands because they can’t grip with the Wookiee hands.

Also your main character wears a helmet at all times that (if it’s anything like my Mandalorian helmet) is pretty poor visibility and full body armor and THIS was your breaking point for stunts?

Ahsoka’s lekku and montrals grow as she ages. These are about S7 length; as @reena-jenkins put it, THEY DE-AGED HER HEAD.  Ahsoka fans coming in know this.  PEOPLE SAW THE REBELS EPILOGUE.

I wonder how many of the people being self-righteous about being totally fine about Ahsoka’s lekku are the same people who claim that Katee Sackhoff is too young to play Bo-Katan.

this also puts them in a weird position in regards to the inevitable merchandise: do they go with normal Ahsoka from TCW and Rebels, the one everyone is familiar with, or do they go with these stunted lekku?

(I can’t believe they’re going to make Her Universe sell merch with this Ahsoka on it. it’s not going to happen but I wish HU was going to be petty enough to not sell any nu!Ahsoka merch.)

Here is some nice art of how Ahsoka’s lekku and montral should have looked.

hoo boy were those prosthetics also just Bad.

“but the stunts” buddy I’m sure Pedro Pascal and his various stunt doubles aren’t having a great time in full armor with almost no visibility either

if you’re going to put the character in, do it right

YOU CAN’T CHEAT

look, I am really, really aural -- the best example I can give is that even though intellectually I know that Matt Lanter and Hayden Christensen both play Anakin Skywalker, I literally cannot parse them as both being the same Anakin Skywalker and for that reason TCW and the PT don’t exist for the same continuity for me.  (This also goes for Ewan McGregor and James Arnold Taylor, Natalie Portman and Cat Taber, and Samuel L. Jackson and TC Carson. I can kinda cope with the multiple Palpatine VAs. Yes, the decision to use Hayden and Sam in Ahsoka’s vision in “Shattered,” even blending into Matt’s voice from Hayden’s, threw me so badly I couldn’t take the vision seriously.)  Ashley Eckstein has a very distinctive voice, and moreover has been the only person to ever voice Ahsoka up to this point (even in the Ahsoka novel audiobook). Barring a MIRACLE I was never going to be able to parse another actress’s voice as Ahsoka’s, solely because of how my brain works.

I could probably have parsed someone else’s face because animated Ahsoka is pretty stylized but the voice thing is a huge problem for me because of how aural I am.

(I say this but when Squadrons did a more live action-style Hera -- knowing they mo-capped Vanessa Marshall I think they used Vanessa’s face for Hera’s, which is also what it looks like on the revised art and face sculpt for the Black Series Hera -- I kind of had a meltdown about it (for...weird reasons). And that was the same VA.)

(The timeskip between TCW and Rogue One, then Rebels, probably saved Saw Gerrera for me here, but he was also never a main character.)

can you believe that Sam Witwer’s Maul got more live action respect than Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka

I love Sam’s Maul but wow

this is particularly jarring because Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein always seemed like they were friends? I realize that this gets skewed by how little of their actual lives we see online, but that is the vibe that I’ve gotten from interviews and social media posts.

can you believe that TROS gave more respect to Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka than Dave Filoni’s Mando episode did (here is her statement on TROS.)

back in March, when the Dawson casting rumors first dropped (or leaked, as the case may be), Ashley posted a statement about it saying that she was not involved in The Mandalorian. she has over the years been very vocal about desperately wanting to play live-action Ahsoka, who is a character solely associated with her up until today, and honestly this just breaks my heart.

I am not the massive Ashley Eckstein fan that many Ahsoka fans are, but I have never heard anything bad about her (I saw her at my hotel at SWCC while I was waiting for my roommate to arrive! that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to her, a distance of about six feet), and I really desperately hope that someone told her about this beforehand and she didn’t find out from watching the episode.

Also, while I’m here talking about Ashley Eckstein, the characterization here was extremely off, in that specific way that happens when a writer/director is working with their absolute favorite character, DAVE FILONI. I do trust Ashley to course-correct Dave on Ahsoka (in the same way we’ve heard about Sam Witwer pushing back on people about Maul), and that...was not happening here.  (I think Katee Sachoff said something similar to this about Bo-Katan in her interview last week, as well.)

how did you get Bo-Katan so right and Ahsoka so wrong

look, Dave Filoni is truly living up to George Lucas’s legacy in that he can story tell pretty well but he’s not actually that great at nitty-gritty of writing and directing. (none of the really good TCW episodes are his.)

this episode made me think of A Friend in Need (which he directed) which is not, like, a BAD episode but quite notoriously includes the Bo-Katan ass-slap and also Ahsoka beheading four Mandalorians at once.

it also includes a helpless village of oppressed and exploited Asian-coded civilians who are there mostly as background scenery so the bad guys can be bad and the heroes can feel righteous

I’ll come back to that one

the level of violence in this episode was...weird. honestly, too high? in a way that probably would not have registered if it was anyone but Ahsoka. look, I am an animated shows person. I know TCW and Rebels inside and out. I know that neither one is particularly shy about killing off faceless bad guys (though if you watch Rebels S1 compared to Rebels S4 they really dial back the amount of fatal violence the main characters commit in the last season, lol).  But this felt off for Ahsoka in a way I can’t really articulate.

why is Ahsoka attacking a random Mandalorian (her allies are Mandalorians!) who is walking through the woods WITH A BABY? WITHOUT WARNING?

part of that is just her movement -- when they animated her for TCW back in 2008, they made a deliberate decision to give her mannerisms and movement and a fighting style that a human can’t do because she isn’t human and animation can do that. which means that they hobbled themselves when they came to translating her to live action because uh a human can’t do that.

something about her lightsaber blades looked really, really wrong and I can’t put my finger on what. it’s like they just used the illuminated blades of the stunt sabers but didn’t do the extra CGI that the films do? I don’t know.

Ahsoka did a LOT of dramatic posing and what WAS that?

Dave can’t direct live action, that’s what that was

since when can you canonically convey that much information mind to mind

are Ahsoka and Grogu a dyad in the Force (I know the answer is no but also: what? what was happening?)

the only people we’ve seen who can do that sort of thing are Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis, who both have the rare talent for telemetry, and even that’s not mind to mind communication, that’s touching a thing and going “YIKES”

you are telling me that Ahsoka Tano, whom six months ago we saw take on Darth Maul, a whole barrage of Mandalorian warriors, and her entire clone trooper battalion and walk away without a scratch, had to work up a sweat fighting one woman with a spear

you do know that we all saw TCW and Rebels right

and here’s the problem! this episode makes zero sense if you HAVE seen TCW and Rebels because (1) she doesn’t look right (2) she doesn’t fight right (3) timelines? we’ve never heard of them? (4) is Thrawn back? did you find the Chimaera? (you all do remember that Ezra and Thrawn aren’t out there alone and are in fact with a 40,000 man crewed star destroyer right) (5) did you NOT find them? (6) are you even looking? (7) this is supposed to be AFTER the Rebels epilogue unless you’ve decided to take advantage of that specific ending scene not being super specifically dated and if it’s before IT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE! because I desperately hate that epilogue and its implications EVEN AS IT IS! (8) why would you call this episode “The Jedi” when since 2013 Ahsoka’s whole thing has been not being a Jedi

to be fair I’m pretty sure S7 tried very hard to course correct that but unfortunately, they could not because the rest of canon exists

are you still trying to deny me grown Ahsoka and Rex when we know you got Temuera back for a five second shot of Boba

to be fair I would have the same aural problems with Temuera voicing Rex because that’s Dee Bradley Baker as far as I’m concerned (I reiterate that this is because of how my brain process character and sound, not anythign else)

if you haven’t seen TCW and Rebels this is a random Jedi wandering around for no specific reason namedropping a completely random person who has no prior significance unless it’s going to turn up later

this entire show has consisted of namedropping random people and things with no prior significance within the show itself and it remains entirely unclear whether they’re ever going to have significance within the show itself

look, I can buy Ahsoka not wanting to train the kid both for her stated reasons and for some implied stuff from earlier on in canon (the kids in the Ahsoka novel, the babies from Future of the Force), even what happened with Ezra, and obviously she has Plans and cannot haul a baby around with her when that baby is going to be a baby for an indeterminate amount of time

which honestly is something that ought to come up because even if Ahsoka wanted to train the kid by the time she grew old and died he might, if we were very lucky, have advanced to being essentially a pre-teen and then would be on his own again? this is also true for Din.

lol sure go cast yourself out into the Force, I’m sure there’s absolutely not a single darksider still wandering around the galaxy who might perk up at “ooh, free apprentice!”

I’m literally starting to think that this show takes place in an alternate universe where Luke and Leia either don’t exist or died at some point in the OT

me, baffled, last season: you’re telling me Cara Dune, Alderaanian, had never heard of the Jedi? was she not keeping up with whatever Leia Organa was doing? was the Rebel Alliance actually big enough that PEOPLE IN IT HADN’T HEARD OF LUKE SKYWALKER?

what...is Luke doing right now. isn’t he training Leia?

WHAT HAS AHSOKA BEEN DOING FOR TEN YEARS are we seriously supposed to believe she peaced out of the Rebel Alliance after Malachor and whatever the hell they’re going to make that out to be (honestly at this point I’m betting on “they will never touch it”)

does or does Ahsoka not know that Luke exists

hoo boy can you just see them trying to cast a younger Luke, or do you think they’d CGI de-age Mark Hamill?

oh yeah let’s go through this again in a season with someone else playing young Luke, let’s, I’m not emotionally invested in that so I’m prepared to be entertained

hasn’t Sebastian Stan been floated (even if just on Twitter) for young Luke?

why are these not-imperials on this planet. what are they doing here. what’s the point.

 why is the planet...being burned? I was half-expecting, like, normal deforestation (in terms of logging for lumber) but I’m also a bit ??? about this.

since when is beskar resistant to lightsabers, I thought cortosis was the only thing that was? whatever, it’s new canon, they can do whatever they want. (ETA: apparently that’s been true for a while; I am more a Jedi person than a Mandalorian one as far as the EU goes and my Mandalorian lore is my weakest point.)

dear god were these fight scenes bad

I did spot Morai and I appreciated the tookas

okay, I am taking the next thing out of bullet points because I was really, really upset by it, and as an Asian-American woman it affects me directly.

I was really, really shaken by the use of village of (space) Asian people who were portrayed solely as background victims to be tortured and exploited.  Star Wars has a long history of Orientalism, and some of it I can look away from and some of I can’t.  Mando especially has a very bad track record with its treatment of Asian characters (Fennec Shand), and in recent years the rest of Star Wars live action has also been pretty bad about it; I will never forget how shaken and upset I was by Paige Tico’s death at the beginning of TLJ, and Rose’s sidelining in TROS was a lot to deal with. There has also been some pretty appalling anti-Asian racism from the Mandalorian fandom that I have seen in regards towards casting rumors about Sabine (which brought me to the point of tears as recently as yesterday).

I had been braced for Rosario Dawson Ahsoka because it’s been rumored for so long, if never officially confirmed by Lucasfilm, and after they pulled the original VA for Leia from Resistance a few years ago (without ever making an official statement but it was after she made really dismissive statements during the Kavanaugh hearings) I was still really hoping they’d pull Dawson for the transphobic assault allegations, or that the rumors were false, or...something.  I was not expecting the way that they treated the Asian civilian population here.  I kept hoping that there was going to be something, and it’s like they kept almost going there with Governor Wing (you want to make either his name or his position clear in the actual episode, maybe?) but then kept pulling back, which just made the whole population victims that had to be rescued by outsiders. And exploited, and tortured, and abused in general.

And yes, I’m aware the Magistrate/Morgan Elsbeth is an Asian-American woman.  That doesn’t make it better?  Since Ahsoka presumably kills her offscreen?

(Also Diana Lee Inosanto is a stunt performer and a fight choreographer, why is that fight scene so wooden, damn.)

okay back to bullet points to wrap up

I realize I haven’t said much about Din and the kid and that’s because they didn’t...do...much? I guess if you’re actually invested in them “YAY HE HAS FEELINGS” is a major thing but I’m not

I have flashes of being invested in Din, but the problem is that I never know what the hell this show is doing because it’s all over the place.  We are 5/8 of the way into season 2 and I have no idea what it’s trying to do: they keep setting stuff up and then not doing anything with it. I can make vague predictions based on what’s set up and based on my knowledge of canon, but this show is so weirdly set up and paced that I can never tell if they’re something for A Reason, for the lulz, or for the Aesthetic.

I feel extremely vindicated by the revelation a few weeks ago that Din grew up in a cult but I also straight-up feel like I spent the past year being gaslighted about what Mandalorians were, and that’s...not a great feeling. Do I think that the show is going to do anything with that? Fuck, I don’t know. I hope so. I know what I’d do as a writer. But I can’t predict anything they’re doing and that makes me really uneasy.

jeez, at least when George Lucas was making Star Wars you knew he was doing it to entertain himself and tell a specific story rather than constantly having to go back and wonder what story lines got compromised for a project down the road.

like, is this why they did mo-cap Ahsoka in S7, to brace us for live action Ahsoka here? I know they had already filmed Mando S2 before S1 came out. WHY THEY DIDN’T THEY REUSE LAUREN MARY KIM AS AHSOKA’S STUNT DOUBLE THEN? it’s not like she hasn’t stunted in Mando before?

if this was supposed to be a backdoor pilot to a Rebels sequel...I will flip a table

I enjoyed the Bad Batch eps in TCW S7 but knowing that there’s going to be a Bad Batch show I’m now wondering if they’re only in S7 to backdoor pilot that show

how far back does this go? did they put the Legacy of Mandalore story line in Rebels S4 solely to set up for this? especially considering that that’s the one thing in S4 that actually has saga weight and then they immediately got rid of everything it accomplished to set up for this?

I presume that this is the reason they refused to release the turnaround for Ahsoka’s epilogue look two years ago. apparently it doesn’t matter given they changed her entire epilogue color scheme and also her lekku and personality.

Look -- at the end of the day, there was only about a 2% chance I was ever going to like this episode, but I was holding out for it nevertheless. I do get surprised from time to time! I liked the Bo-Katan episode! This was, however, a hot mess. And yes: a lot of the things that bother me are not going to bother other people. (I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Asian villagers, for example.)

[hweiro]

*trots in* hey it's yori from ao3, since I saw that you want people to talk to you about your fics, truly why does seijou cling to the mine in"Sing with me", and also can I get the deets for what really went down in the kurodai dance fic when iwa ran after oikawa? or better yet, can I get the thoughts of iwa from both "same space" and "sing with me" when Oikawa flashes that skin via pulling down zipper/pulling collar parts respectively? iwa being thirty for oikawa makes my day lol.

Oh also this isn’t in anon but I’d say your specialty would be AU fics. 

Looking back at my stuff…I really do…write…a lot of AUs. Hopefully good AUs though! I tend to get caught up in planning the settings and making sure everything makes sense that I feel that I sometimes over-plan and mess up what I initially want to convey. 

Detailed explanation of the significance of the Jiyūshinu mines in A Song of Conquest and Fate and an Iwaoi drabble in the Seen A Million Faces universe below the cut: 

A Song of Conquest and Fate: Jiyūshinu mines/Tanima Gyakusatsu The reason why Seijou clings to the Jiyūshinu mines is two-fold. Firstly, it really does contribute largely to the main exports of Seijou. More importantly however, it is a significant site for an event that led to the end of the Kasai Age. 

I actually outlined a brief history here to @silentmight and @wataksampingan, but tl;dr - Oikawa, at the command of his father, massacred 28 men (the strongest and oldest cavalry unit in Seijou’s then-army) who were publicly revolting against the emperor’s tyrannical rule at said mines. This kind of protest was the first of its kind, given that the emperor was considered the favored child of the gods and it was considered suicidal/impossible to oppose him. That it had managed to amass as many as 28 people was already noteworthy in and of itself. But doubt had already already growing within the people regarding the fourth Seijou no Tennō, especially since he had shown no proof of wielding elfire, forcing the young prince to use it in his stead. Added to the cruelty of his reign, there were whispers that Seijou no Tennō was not as favored by the gods as he proclaimed himself to be after all. Yet no one dared to revolt for fear of their lives until this incident, which was later called ‘Tanima Gyakusatsu’ - The Calvary Massacre’. 

At that point in time, Oikawa (despite/because of being emotionally abused by his father) believes his father’s rule to be fair and just. Tanima Gyakusatsu is the first of a series of events that ultimately led to Oikawa killing his father and taking over as emperor. The Jiyūshinu minesis thus perceived as a sacred site: for the people of Seijou, it represents the power of the public citizens’ voices. For Oikawa, it is a bitter reminder of who he once was, and who he must never be again.

(…ok, I lied: that wasn’t as tl;dr at all! But this is as concise as I can get? ;—;)

Seen A Million Faces: What happened to Iwaoi? …in all honesty, I was flailing so hard over writing the Kurodai in this, I didn’t actually plan out the Iwaoi get-together part of this fic at all. lDD;;; *guilty face* But! 

Iwaizumi pretty much runs all the way to Nekoma, probably frightening some of the students exiting/entering. He ignores Lev’s loud “Hey, what are you-?” in favor of dashing down the corridor, careening around Kai like a drunkard on a mission.He’s not drunk, not by a long shot - if anything, everything’s that much sharper, that much clearer, emotions and thoughts merging to focus on one person, and one person only-Here.The door slams against the wall, too loud, too hard, but Iwaizumi doesn’t care, can’t care about anything but the room’s lone occupant, whose head had whipped up, startled, large hazel eyes growing even wider as he registers Iwaizumi’s presence. He’s seated on the hardwood floor, legs stretched before him, a support bandage firmly wrapped around his injured knee. Not dancing, at least, even if he was too much of a stubborn idiot to stay at home and rest. His sweater is loose around the collar, worn thin from age, and his hair is up and out of his eyes - the dancer clearly hadn’t bothered too much with his appearance. 

Somehow, he’s still so goddamned handsome, he took what remained of Iwaizumi’s heaving breaths away.

Oikawa’s still staring - they both are, in some bizarre parody of a showdown as the melody of ‘Shape of You’ vibrates through the walls. Time hasn’t stopped, but Iwaizumi feels stuck in place, fixed in this moment that hovered upon a threshold of…what? Change? Revelations? Iwaizumi is a volleyball player, not a poet. He’s a realist, not a dreamer. It’s why he’s never allowed himself to picture how things might be like if Oikawa…well. It was easier to remind himself of all the things that could, that would go wrong. Easier to dislike Kuroo and his ‘intimacy’ with Oikawa than to admit that he wanted that too.

Easier to swallow his feelings and keep them pent up, the best friend of the best dancer he knows than to do….whatever he seems to be trying to do right now.

Oikawa likes you. A damn lot.

But did he really? Now that the momentum of adrenaline is no longer propelling him forward, the familiar doubt creeps over him, efficiently suppressing any urge to confess to Oikawa. It subsumes him, merciless in reminding him that there was no reason for Oikawa to pick him over any of his other friends. Just because Kuroo is out of the picture doesn’t means Oikawa is unattached -

“Iwa-chan.” Oikawa’s voice is just about audible over the music, and shit, Iwaizumi isn’t prepared for this.  “What are you doing here?”

”You should…go home.” Was that croaking him? “Rest. Uh.”

Numb feet don’t register the one, two steps Iwaizumi takes back out of the doorway. He needs to regroup, he hadn’t thought this through - Something smacks him squarely in the side -one of Oikawa’s shoes, its owner holding the other one, face twisted up as if he might cry. Even teeth are pressed hard against the dancer’s lower lip though, and when he next speaks, anger was a tremulous thread lacing each word together.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare run. Get over here.” 

Oikawa beckons and Iwaizumi comes. But hasn’t this always been the case with Oikawa?

“Iwa-chan.” This close, it’s hard to miss the shakiness in Oikawa’s voice. “Why are you here?”

“I…you…” Iwaizumi tries, but his heartbeat is heavier than the bass of the song in his ear, louder and faster and blocking up his throat just when he needed words the most. He starts to lean in, hesitates - what the fuck are you doing, you can’t just -

And Oikawa meets him where he is, chapped lips soft as they moved against Iwaizumi’s, tentative and hopeful.

*buries head in pillow and screams* 

I was supposed to be writing head-canon, not a drabble. Literally banged this out at my desk at work - sorry for any errors/general blahness that might have appeared.

 As for Iwaizumi’s thoughts re: Oikawa and his sexy relationships with exposed collars, I might one day actually write Iwaizumi’s POV on that in another fic. But know that in both cases you mentioned, he was indeed a very thirsty man.

anonymously tell me what my specialty as a fanfiction writer is 

fanfic writers meme

[allineednow]

Survival of the Kindest: In a Dog-Eat-Dog World, this may be more important than being "the Fittest."

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A week back in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a guy decided to incite chaos, darkness, and fear.

And a few weeks before that, another guy made the same decision in Las Vegas.

Why? It was a direct effect of what they believed. They felt anger. They felt fear.

Consequently, they created chaos. They fed the darkness. In the process, they created more fear, as well as immeasurable pain and suffering. We are responsible for creating our reality, but all of us send out what we feel, although this is the worst of humanity in action.

How? We are all connected by a web of energy called the collective consciousness. This web comprises all the thoughts and feelings of every human on the planet. Ever thought of someone, and they called or texted at that moment? That's the consciousness in action.

We create greater collective insanity because we are all connected, every time we feel anger. Every time we feel fear, we feed the darkness on earth. We create tragedy.

Our tragedies have a goal. They show us the shadow that's begging to be changed into light, our wounds that will need to be healed. They also create compassion and serve as a catalyst for understanding and unity. Although we may not agree on everything, we understand each other's pain. We become unified in our anguish.

It doesn't have to be this way, although right now, tragedies are the way that finds understanding and unity. We can change this. Love is the emotion that brings people together. Light is the energy that heals us. We create comprehension -- the formula for unity by changing our anger and fear into light and love.   Because we are all connected through the consciousness, as more of us choose to do so, our tragedies will diminish.

Eventually, they will be eliminated.

Let us look at the science behind the consciousness. In an interview with The Huffington Post, John Hagelin, a Quantum physicist, explains:

"Stressed people create a stressed society--a stressed collective consciousness. And everyone embedded inside that stressed that social stress is felt by society. It thereby feeds upon itself...(Conversely), individual practice of certain evidence-based, stress-reducing techniques (such as meditation, which fills us with more light energy) relieves human stress, according to extensive published research. And the practice of these techniques by a significant sub-portion of a population (even 1 percent) was similarly shown to reduce social stress, leading to substantially reduced violent crime, psychiatric emergency calls, and other signs of acute social stress."

Even a small percentage of the populace deciding to be conscious conductors of light can affect the whole of humanity.

Think this isn't possible? Let us look at the science again. The Global Consciousness Project is "an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists and engineers" based out of Princeton University. Their goal is to measure shifts in the consciousness on a global scale that are correlated with events that are specific. They quantify changes in the collective consciousness via "a network of random number generators (RNGs) spread across the world." There are approximately 70 stations and they function.

However, when events occur that trigger a reaction that is worldwide, the stations start to produce patterns. The closer the stations are, the more clear the pattern. The best similarity in these patterns is seen with events that trigger compassion and empathy. Events that fear do not have as profound an effect. This is because compassion and empathy are emotions that cause us to connect, while fear and anxiety isolate people, because they cause us to think about our survival and bring people.

Essentially, this tells us that compassion and empathy are stronger than fear and panic--and they're true catalysts for unity.

The time for unity has arrived. In actuality, it is the next step in our development as a species. This would seem to defy Darwin's evolutionary theory of the "survival of the fittest" that's so ingrained in our western culture.   However, in his job The Descent of Man, Darwin's research (actually) "reveals that 'survival of the kindest' is more correct for explaining which species climb the evolutionary ladder efficiently and effectively." Darwin believed that compassion wasn't only a natural instinct, but was necessary for the species.

Spring-boarding off of Darwin's actual theory of "survival of the kindest,"Edward O. Wilson, a biologist and theorist, has shown that: "Our development from tribal into a global society increasingly favors compassionate and cooperative over callous and competitive approaches to human interaction."

Once we choose to become conductors of light, we not only create unity, as we direct ourselves collectively through another stage of our development, but we also guarantee the survival of humanity.

So do this? How can we release our anger and adopt understanding? How do we give up our fear?

To start with, we recognize that anytime we feel fear or anger, we are feeling.   We are being shown our darkness that has to be changed into light.

The first step in changing any emotion is to learn to be in the emotion, but not of it--to separate the emotion from the raw energy behind it. Energy fuels emotions, and it is the ideas that we add to the energy that charge it with emotion.

Consider it as a recipe: the energy is the raw ingredient. The ideas around the energy are what give the dish. Anxiety and anger come from the same energy. Anger is fear disguised as righteousness, and it is our greatest hindrance to unity. It's because we think they're the cause of our distress, when we feel angry at someone else. We feel dark energy within us, and we blame "the other."

But, because we are all connected, there is no other. Thus, by sitting with it, any time we feel anger, instead of sending the energy outward we can opt to start. Where it is located in our body, we can find. Where do we feel it? Is it in our? Our chest? Our throat?

At this time, we can only try to just observe the energy with no ideas and no judgement. This is what it means to be in the energy, but not of it. Then, we can begin the process of lifting it out.   Energy flows and ebbs, so we can lift it up with our in breath and visualize flooding that area of our body with light, as we feel the anger rise. With each inhale, we feel in our body for the energy increase, higher with every breath. With every exhale, we envision that the energy exiting our body. We continue until we've brought all the way to the energy to the crown of our head, and with our breath, we push our body and it apart through the top of our head.

Energy has been transformed by us . We've become a conductor of light, and we've added energy into the collective consciousness in so doing. We and we have healed a wound that was private and a wound of the collective, respectively.

Throughout this process, it is important to remember to not be afraid of the darkness within us. To be able to heal them, we have to check at the places in ourselves. This manner, darkness is a catalyst for light. When we are children, we are afraid of the dark. But then the light is turned on by us, and a new perspective is created. When we shine a light on the darkness, we produce a new outlook. We see that we have nothing.

How can we start to embrace understanding, once we have transformed our darkness into light? Do we send more love to the collective? First, we use our ideas to create it. We think about the the target of our anger. We think about the fear they must feel. The isolation. The knot in their stomach. Their heart that is broken.

And we feel the compassion begin to rise in us. It may start in our heart. In our belly. In our throat.  And instead of lifting it up and out, we bring it down and pull it inward, until it washes over us. Until our body is saturated with compassion. Until we don't see "the other" anymore. At the other, we see ourselves.   We've used our ideas to create understanding. We've used our emotions to make more love energy. In the process, we've become more unified.

We live in times of polarization. It's easy to become passionate about our beliefs, and passion is indeed a driving force for change. But, once we see the world through the lens of "us versus them," our passion turns to anger. To bitter gall. We will need to recognize this in ourselves. How does this feel? Not very good.

Emotions are energy, and energy is a boomerang. If we feel anger, we are sending out anger. Then guess what? It comes back to us--on steroids. The most suffering and the wars have commenced in this way.

Let us not send anger. Let compassion is sent by us. Let us send light. We truly are all in this together. The time for division is finished. It is not us versus them. It is not black versus white. Nothing is.

We are all human. A web of energy literally connects us, and we can influence each other for good or ill. Let's go shall we? Let us stop looking at what others begin looking at ourselves and should do differently. How do we bring more light and love to our collective? How do we create more understanding? If even a small percentage of us decide to do so, we free ourselves and will create unity.

And in unity, we'll make what we seek: equality peace, and the world we want our children.

It's the next phase of our development.

Writer: Jessica Gammell-Bennett Picture: Elephant Journal archives Editor: Callie Rushton Copy Editor: Yoli Ramazzina Social Editor: Waylon Lewis

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/battlestar-galactica-supernaturals-tahmoh-penikett-innovative-new-series-deep-six/

'Battlestar Galactica,' 'Supernatural's' Tahmoh Penikett talks up innovative new series 'Deep Six'

It’s been a while since I had the pleasure of chatting with Tahmoh Penikett, who memorably played Ezekiel/Gadreel on Supernatural a few seasons ago. Tahmoh just finished shooting on a new digital sci-fi adventure series called Deep Six, which caught my attention as a unique and exciting project. Deep Six is a digital sci-fi adventure series that follows a group of astronauts and their military escort on the first deep space mission. They find themselves stranded after an unanticipated accident, and – wouldn’t you know it – also confronted with a first encounter that may not be very friendly. What makes the series unusual is its focus on realism – the creator is a scientist, and the show has two real life experts as consultants, including a professor of astrophysics and a space historian. With their help, Deep Six aims to portray space in all its beauty and majesty as well as its terrifying silence and endless expanse. Much as sci-fi classics like 2001 and Alien anchored their stories in realism and thus amped up the terror, Deep Six aims to be both accurate and scary. Sign me up! I caught up with Tahmoh today after a week of our schedules absolutely refusing to mesh and me coming down with a truly horrifying cold. But we persevered! You can read our other interview with Tahmoh Penikett here. [caption id="attachment_42462" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Photos: Fangasm[/caption] Lynn: It’s so nice to talk to you again! We miss you at the Supernatural conventions, by the way. Tahmoh: Yeah it’s been a while, thank you. I miss being there; those things are fun. Lynn: Well Supernatural is going into its 13th season, so who knows, you may be back. Tahmoh: (laughing) With Supernatural, you never know! So true. So what if Gadreel sacrificed himself in a moment of heroism? Death is an impediment to returning to Supernatural. Lynn: I was fascinated by what I’ve heard about Deep Six. Is that one of the things that drew you to this project, the focus on realism? Do you think that will make the series scarier? Tahmoh: I think any time that you have a creator and showrunner who is determined to make something as realistic as possible -- being honest about the risks involved with space travel, where we might be in the future, what limitations we might have, whatever exceptional technologies we may have advanced in – but being real about the dangers of space and how hard space is. And that makes it more plausible for the viewer and the audience. In general, to me, as humans, we’re moving ahead at such an incredible rate in terms of technology, and specifically rocket propulsion and traveling to other planets, and eventually getting to Mars has become a priority again. It wasn’t for about 30 years in terms of the major space agencies in the world, and for NASA, it just was not a priority. Now it’s become a priority again, and we’re seeing the possibilities, and you hear we may be getting there in ten to fifteen years. So it’s really fascinating, but there are inherent risks. And here you have a creator like the ones who created Deep Six, and they’re trying to stay true to that. They’re having scientific advisors, and as a result, they have a show that is much more realistic and much more plausible.  Audiences, in general, are educated about it because we’re watching all the programs, we’re following Elon Musk on twitter, we’re following NASA, we’re seeing all the updates, and we’re seeing what the limitations are. So in general, we’re quite educated about what is really happening. Lynn: That’s sort of what I was thinking. It seems to me the more realism, the more there’s the potential for really being scared, simply because it seems more plausible. I remember seeing 2001 A Space Odyssey – I was a kid and probably too young to actually be watching it, but that’s part of what made it so scary. Tahmoh: Yeah, Battlestar Galactica is a perfect example of a show I was on that had that – there was, of course, some technology we had, we’re doing space travel – but the Battlestar itself, it was classic, it really looked like a military vessel.  It was like a warship. We had the old school phones to communicate. It wasn’t really fancy but a lot of it was science based, we had actual rocket scientists who were consultants on the show, so a lot of the technology had science behind it.  And I think that’s what these guys are trying to do, so that’s good, man. [I’ve said this before, but I love the way Tahmoh talks – he’s clearly so knowledgeable and then he just casually tosses in a ‘man’ or a ‘love, , ’ and it’s just like, OH.] Lynn: Yeah, I totally agree. Did you get to interact with the scientist consultants as a guest act or you were just aware of their influence in the conceptualization of the show? Tahmoh: Yeah, I was just aware of their influence. I got the call, and the timing wasn’t ideal, but my agent said, just look at the script, I’ve heard good things, people have been talking about it, and it’s apparently a really good script. So I read the scene they wanted me to do, and it was literally one full day of work they wanted me to do. And once I read the script, I was like you know, this would be great to do, this is really well written. Better than most web series that I’ve seen done. And it just worked out time-wise, but mostly I wanted to do it because the script was so well done but also the consultants on it. So I went out there, and they were selling me on it as we were trying to make it happen, they were selling me on the project with all the information about how they had consulting scientists, how one of the creators is actually a physicist himself. You know, it definitely leant it some real credibility when you know that people like that are involved, and they’re trying to make something as real as that. Lynn: I’m not surprised at the quality of the script just because they seem to be putting so much heart and so much motivation into the entire project. That probably translates. Did it translate also to the day of filming? It sounds like it was a long day, but was it a set where people were motivated? Like the Supernatural set where every time I’ve been there, everyone seems to work so smoothly and even when things go wrong, everyone seems to go with the flow because they all seem to love what they’re doing? Was this a similar set? Tahmoh: Similar. You know, obviously, it’s hard to compare it with some other aspects, these guys were working with a very limited budget, but it definitely didn’t look like it. They were very efficient, everyone I saw on the crew was very good at their job, and on board and invested. So yeah, I guess they did share those qualities like on Supernatural, and that’s always a good thing. You know a project is good when everyone is really pulling their own because they believe in it, they believe in the story. If you believe in the story, you want to be a part of it and bring your best work, because the end product should be great. And I’m excited to be a part of that. Lynn: Can you tell me anything about your character? Tahmoh: I can’t speak a lot on him, I don’t know how much they’ve released. All I can say is he’s one of the astronauts’ commanding officers, so he’s kind of the veteran. He’s been around the block, and he’s someone who a lot of the other astronauts look up to. And you get a sense of his character right away, who he is, how much experience he has. Then the situation takes a turn for the worst, and that’s the surprising hook of my episode is what they encounter, what sort of problems he faces and how he deals with it.  And he’s obviously a veteran and very capable and smart and a leader and the others respect him. He’s serious, and he’s also got a joking and playful attitude at times, but it’s also, they’re astronauts and there’s no messing around, so when it comes down to business, and the situation gets serious, he’s by the book. Lynn: I’m glad to hear that he gets at least a little opportunity to do a little bit of comedy because I know from your other projects how good you are at that subtle comedy. Tahmoh: Yeah, I don’t, unfortunately, get the opportunity a lot to do it, but whenever I can squeeze it in there, it’s kinda who I am, and I think most of us have that in us, right? Lynn: Right, I totally agree. I know from talking to you at length in the past about your portrayal of Gadreel how thoughtful you are about the characters you’re portraying and creating a backstory so you can find what their motivation is and so you can understand them from a psychological viewpoint. [See my earlier interview with Tahmoh for that discussion here}  When you go in to do something like this, where you have to create a character and their arc in literally one day, is that challenging for someone who likes to really get a handle on the person you’re portraying? Tahmoh: That’s a really good point you just made because it is. Normally if I have two days of preparation, that’s still a very short amount of time. It’s kind of an essential part of my process to write the backstory. This was very very last minute, and I was travelling and there were things going on, so this was so last minute that I literally jumped on a plane after an afternoon of negotiating, flew, time difference, lost three hours, Toronto, out the next morning, shot all day. So I didn’t have the opportunity, I simply couldn’t do the work that I normally would, so I have to trust the script. I communicated to the writers before I arrived and I had a conversation with them where I said, you’re really going to have to lay out for me who this guy is, beyond what’s in the given circumstances and what’s in the script, I need you to tell me who he is and then I’ll work with that as best I can in this short amount of time we have. Lynn: That makes sense. I remember that in our last chat, in the green room at some Supernatural convention, we spent a lot of time talking about your process because as a psychologist, that’s what fascinates me. How actors make sense of their characters and how you bring that through, especially a very complicated character like Gadreel. So that was my first thought, I wonder how he’s doing that because this is a different set of circumstances. Tahmoh: Yeah, that’s very observant of you. Sometimes you just don’t have the opportunity. And I’ve said this before, sometimes you – and it’s rare, unfortunately – but sometimes the script is so good and the character is so good that you connect with the character on such a cerebral and such an instinctual level that you don’t have to make those choices. You CAN and you may, but sometimes you just completely understand that character. Sometimes you understand them so well that you trust in the script 100%, but because I like to do my due diligence, I’ll still –  it just makes it that much easier to color his backstory if I do have the opportunity to write some of it, you know? Lynn: Yeah. Tahmoh: It always helps, because it layers the work and it makes it more real, and you don’t just forget about it. Helo (on Battlestar Galactica) I definitely ended up writing a lot of backstory, but also when I had the audition, I just understood him 100%. I got him. I was like, just let me in the room. I didn’t have to use those techniques that you use to get you in an emotional place, whether it be substitution or sense memory or things like that, it was just there for me. Every once in a while in your career you’re blessed with things like that. Lynn: That must feel really good when it happens. Did you have to do more work with the Gadreel character on Supernatural because it was such an unusual character and had such an unusual evolution? Tahmoh: I had to do some work, but for that – and I’ve told this story before – it threw me off at first when I found out that Jared [Padalecki] was already playing the character. Because he’s one of the leads of the show! So Jared and I were playing the same character, and me not knowing that – I thought that I would be playing Ezekiel or Gadreel first, and then when I found out he had already played him – on the day that I was playing him – that threw me off. Lynn: I guess so! Tahmoh: But I got to see, and like I said before, he was doing very specific stuff, so I was able to incorporate it. But it was also not far off from what I was going to do, so that made it easier. And then, getting a sense of where they were thinking of taking the character, that’s when I started changing some of – not changing, but I started adding to who I thought Gadreel was. And I started making some different specific choices. Because the unfortunate thing is when they don’t really give you a sense of where your character is going to go and their arc, but only a loose idea, you also have to remain open to changing some of your choices. You might be making some strong choices, but they just might not work. Lynn: [nodding] Tahmoh: And so you have to be open to that as an actor. And I’ve done it before, I’ve put in a ton of work and made some strong choices, and then you come in, and the producer or director is like, actually no, we need you to do more of this, and you’re like welp okay! Lynn: (laughing) You don’t really think about the amazing flexibility that acting requires. Especially when you’re a guest actor I think, you’re always going in and creating characters who aren’t the leads and so there hasn’t been the amount of backstory given to you. I remember talking with Curtis Armstrong about how he struggled sometimes with Metatron on Supernatural because he was never given the whole story and didn’t know where the character was going. So like you he kept making choices and sometimes they worked and sometimes… Tahmoh: (laughing) Yeah! I totally can relate to that, and Curtis is so fantastic and did such a fantastic job. I could definitely see that was the case with him too, you know?  I felt that the writers were taking Gadreel in a very sort of evil nemesis sort of way and I just felt like I wanted to play against that a little bit.  And when Jared was playing him, he was doing it too – I could see it clearly in his performance, so he kind of set that up for me also, which was great. Lynn: And I think it really worked out in the end because Gadreel did get to be heroic. I think that all of us who were feeling a fondness for the character – much like Metatron –  were second guessing ourselves going hmm why am I feeling this way? We were probably picking up on those subtle things that you and Curtis and Jared were doing, but it made sense eventually because both of them got to be heroes ultimately. Tahmoh: That’s awesome, yeah. Lynn: It was, it was cool.  I won’t keep you too long – and I’m astounded that I’ve managed not to have a coughing fit for 20 minutes – but is there anything else you’re excited about or going up for that you want to talk about? Tahmoh: I’ve done three episodes of Incorporated, a new sci-fi series which is really well done. I got to work with an actor I’ve long admired, Dennis Haysbert, and with Allison Miller. I’m having a blast doing that right now! Lynn: It was so great to talk to you again – we really do miss you on the convention circuit, and I hope our paths cross soon. I’m really looking forward to seeing you on Deep Six. Tahmoh: Great talking to you soon – be well, love. ETA: Imdb tells me that Tahmoh is also part of the new series that’s generating a lot of buzz, Netflix’s Altered Carbon, a futuristic show in which your consciousness can be saved when your body dies and then implanted into another. Some big names are attached, with a very diverse and international cast, so stay tuned for that one also! In the meantime, you can come along for the ride with Deep Six.  Check out some behind the scenes videos on their IndieGoGo page, follow them on @DeepSixSeries, and stay tuned for more! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/deep-six-a-hard-scifi-with-practical-fx-series-space#/ Behind the scenes stills courtesy of Deep Six.

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