#To Create is to Rebel

[seeker-ophelia]

@scaryanneee @cursedhaglette @nadas-dirthalen @neonravengames @mythalism @wiltedartist

my beloved writers, here's a daily reminder that your writing is never ever trash or bad as long as you have fun writing it. go wild and have fun. there're someone out there who will love and cherish those words you wrote. ♡

[aesnawan]

Kanan, Daffodils and Cherry blossoms

One of my favourite characters and the #1 on making me ugly cry ✨

[chyarui]

Commander Wolffe, no introduction needed.

I had so much fun with his tattoos, if you couldn’t tell. After Fox’s depressing ones and Cody’s cute but simple one, I needed to go all out with Wolfy boy’s tat. Honestly, this man deserves a cool tattoo after having to deal with the torture of interacting with C-3PO. I could FEEL his annoyance through the screen (that sassy fucking eyeroll I swear you could feel it though his helmet)

[lavellaned]

A lot of the pro-veilguard arguments I see include a very specific way of viewing what “dark fantasy” is which misses the entire point as to why there are criticisms about the overall tone of the game.

Dark fantasy is not just “how much murder rape bigotry and overall suffering can we put in a story for the sake of doing so”.

It’s about having events and themes based off of the darker parts of reality and then, as the player, being able to do something about it. The general appeal is the catharsis. It’s about seeing these stories reflected through an interactive story in a meaningful, respectful, purposeful way.

Is dragon age the poster child for handling its complicated, real-life-inspired politics well? No. But veilguard was somehow worse. The bar was in hell and it still tripped flat on its face.

Veilguard’s lackadaisical, chronically ironic “well THAT just happened”, neutered writing and theme is not a good argument as to why this is a good dragon age game, and you can’t blame the dark fantasy genre for it.

[nothing-but-flowers88]

Did I get everything I wanted out of the Ahsoka series? No. Did I want Thrawn and Ezra to become unlikely allies? Yes.

I also wanted Eli to find Thrawn with help from the Chiss Ascendancy, for them to get married and adopt Un’hee, and for her to be one of Ezra’s first padawans. But the Disney overloads would never allow such wonderful things

[grif-hawaiian-rolls]

If i had a quarter for every villain that CANONICALLY ends up being friends with (or at least close to) Donut I'd have three quarters!!!

I'm rounding up to get a full dollar of "former villains get to be friends with Donut" with red team locus thank you for your time

[cameoliob]

Their breakup changed lives

(detail shots + Kallus memior drabble under the cut)

"It had been my third week at the academy when I met Jovan. He had approached me– the first of my peers to do so– and asked my name. I told him, and he responded by saying that my accent sounded funny. I promptly told him to kriff off.

At first I thought it was pity, the way that he followed me around, shoving his offered friendship in my face. He tried helping me with my studies, he introduced me to his friends, he even– on a number of occasions– lied to our superiors to help get me out of trouble. Eventually– after a painfully long time– I realized that these weren’t actions taken out of pity. It was simply rather that Jovan was kind. 

I was unused to kindness; the lower levels were harsh, nobody ever wanted to extend a helping hand, and even if they wanted to it was unlikely they could afford it. Jovan was kind for the sake of it. 

Our relationship was at first one of stolen kisses in dark corridors and fleeting looks from across classrooms. Even after the juvenile giddiness had passed, I found that Jovan had become a constant in my life that I dared not let go of. His family had become my own; his mother called me ‘son’, and his dad taught me how to fish (or at least he attempted to). My life had become completely tied to his, and I was perfectly content to have it that way. 

Years down the line we reached a point where the empire had changed us both for the worse. It was after I began ISB training I realized his kindness had become conditional, he’d become selfish, and– dare I say– entitled. What I failed to realize at the time was how I, too, had changed drastically thanks to imperial propaganda and rhetoric; I spent my days working myself to the bone, and the starry-eyed wonder that I’d joined the academy with was long gone, replaced by ambition and apathy. 

Our breakup was messy. It was so long ago that I honestly don’t remember what exactly had caused it, but I do remember how in the following months I was overcome with a constant, all-encompassing rage.

At 24 I was livid, because if things had just gone better, I would have married him.

At 46 I cannot put into words how glad I am that I didn’t."

(Kallus Alexsandr,  Honor Lost on Lasan: Serving the Empire, Fighting for the Alliance. pg 63. Published 6 ABY.)

[illuminatedquill]

Shin asking how Sabine posted this; I’m asking who took the picture?

(It was a nearby security guard that Sabine bullied into doing her bidding. Poor guy. He doesn’t get paid enough to deal with her.)

[inquisitor-apologist]

Anyway. Ever think about how Sabine’s planet was destroyed, her people were genocided, and her family was killed by the Empire. Exactly like what happened to Zeb, and Filoni didn’t even let them interact in Ahsoka???

[mwolf0epsilon]

Not to start beef on main but what was the POINT of creating and then endearing us to Rex, of making him such an integral part of The Clone Wars and Rebels as a protagonist and supporting character, making him not just Anakin's and Ahsoka's captain but also their friend and most loyal ally, if you're gonna fucking snub him from the plot completely?

[psychomusic]

i had a vague idea last night on chiss space-traveling system. it's really just an idea and maybe it breaks the existing lore so. if there's any chiss expert here PLEASE tell me if it's something that could exist because i wanna know if i can put it to use in my story

i know they use force sensitives with that third sight power, but like. idk. i understand that they are trained and sometimes they fail but like that's SO complex. you're traveling faster than light - you can have jedi like reflexes and shit but that's still hard af.

so i was imagining (because lately I've been trying to better understand chiss lore, which i LOVEEE) wouldn't it be easier if there were like some stations in between planets, especially important colonies, to allow the force sensitives to have to navigate between smaller points, and not completely in the dark?

idk if any of you know sky: children of the light's trial of fire, so here's the link (skip the intro part). now imagine that instead of the checkpoints with rocks and candles you have little artifical moons/planets/asteroids (depending on how important that station is), and force sensitives are supposed to reach that and then re orientate etc.

BUT to make it cooler and most importantly, easier to sense for the force sensitives, imagine that those artificial ecosystem are made to be inhabited by different creatures that can't stay on their planet of origin (like. maybe because the environment changed and they are endangered, or they're too dangerous so they like. put them there). so they're full of life. they'd be like lit candles in the dark, literally.

THIS CAME TO ME BECAUSE TWO WEEKS AGO I SAW SUCH A COOL VIDEO (a 12 hour analysis of the phantom menace that's like. so fucking well-researched??? considering its length it's impressive really, so here's the link) that spoke (at 1:19:22) about that Boss Nass's phrase about going through Naboo's planet core. But to synthetize: basically in the lore, Naboo is supposed to lack a molten core, and at the center of the planet, plasma is being emitted, and it creates infinite tunnels that can connect even theed and otho gunga. but besides other worldbuilding problems that this rather absurd idea would create - that i won't recap here - in the video, there are some ideas on how to make it make sense (like. "going through the planet core" is simply a figure of speech and not what actually happened), BUT between those, there is one in particular that struck me: at 1:30:40, he proposed Naboo could be a constructed planet - like a planet-aquarium.

then, the video explains why it can't be the case for naboo but. GUYS!! if there's a species that could pull off something like that it's the chiss, with their sense of order, their need for knowledge, and organization abilities.

the maintenance of these stations with particular ecosystems could then be left at the nearest colony of csilla (kinda like the romans delegated the maintenance of their streets to each town it crossed and benefitted off of it), and be used as a "lighthouse" for new sky-walkers to train their third sight. researchers would benefit from keeping these animals alive + they could be kept in various different scenarios depending on how the specific station is made. if it's big enough, those creatures wouldn't be even captive, in a certain sense. especially since these stations need to be big enough (and full of life) to be perceived by the force sensitives, they'd just become replicas of the planet, where researchers, even in the creation of such stations, can really have a boost on their understanding of those ecosystems, through the feedbacks and experiments on the stations.

i have made a few sketches to visualize the idea

(ugly quality and poor rendition ops. in my defense it was late)

i know i wrote A LOT and prob not many will read this BUT if you've come this far, what do you think?

[artsilon]

A cave? An asteroid starscape? Who knows. But we do know this:

Snakeman's gonna explore the FUCC out of it.

[meldy-arts]

Rebels fans...

We spent all these years coexisting, creating art, and fanfiction. Everyone was basically at peace. And then Ahsoka came around.

Ahsoka aired and Sabezra fans were quickly being called homophobic etc. And now, with a single post from the Actress who plays Sabine, it's gotten even worse.

It's not even been that long and I've had to delete so many threats and hate messages. I'm already being called homophobic because of what the actors posted.

Honestly, what happened to us? Everyone was happy. Everyone was getting along in their own ways.

At this point, I wish Ahsoka had never brought them back.

[swordscleric]

I don't know if anyone's gone through the original Dawn War pantheon* and compared the events of the Dawn War to the events of the Calamity, but it's interesting comparing how Tharizdun acts in the Dawn War to how little we know about it as the Chained Oblivion and might be useful as a theory-crafting aid for how the Chained Oblivion fits with Predathos**.

In the Dawn War, Tharizdun was a normal god, driven mad by extradimensional demons who provided him with huge amounts of power and attempted to force him to open a portal in the Astral Plane to release them. He took this power, and instead of releasing them created the Abyss. He and his would-be masters fought to a stalemate over control of the Abyss, until the rest of the pantheon found out and sealed him away, leaving him chained to a remote part of the Abyss[1].

By contrast, the Chained Oblivion is "something other entirely"[2], "less like a god and more like another world"[3]; it's been categorised as not of the Primes or Betrayers[4], and generally Matt has leaned much more into the cosmic horror vibes (sans a connection to the Far Realm) of the Chained Oblivion. It's a creature of "roiling ink and hungry darkness"[5], and was sealed at the bottom of the Abyss by the Dawnfather and the Knowing Mistress, with support from the Allhammer and the Changebringer[2, 3, 6]. The Chained Oblivion also wants to consume all and end the world and is kept at arms length by the Betrayers[5], and as a result of that plus its association with an unknowable hunger some people have now associated it with Predathos or think it and Predathos are of a similar species.

I think the Chained Oblivion is not Predathos in another form, but I do think that it's of a similar species. Looking at the Dawn War, and assuming (with the full acknowledgement that I'll more than likely be wrong) that Matt will stick as closely to the Dawn War as he has in the past, I think the Chained Oblivion is a smaller and weaker being of nothingness that decided to forge its own path instead of following Predathos' lead. My gut instinct is that the Chained Oblivion, seeing Ethedok and Vordo get eaten, took up Ethedok's mantle of darkness[7]*** and avoided working with Predathos and porentially fought the God Eater in order to survive and work its own odd plans of destruction. The Chained Oblivion makes a lot of plans to try and free itself (see the Angel of Irons or Cognouza), so I wouldn't be surprised if its propensity towards planning was present from the very moment it set foot on Exandria. Does this mean the Chained Oblivion will be let loose to fight the God Eater if Predathos is released? I doubt it, considering that it nearly killed the Knowing Mistress. And we know how the gods feel about family.

Footnotes

*The Dawn War pantheon is the slimmed down pantheon used for 4th edition D&D; can be found on page 11 of the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Used by Matt for the Primes & Betrayers with the addition of Sarenrae from Pathfinder.

**I'm aware of the pitfalls of using existing narratives and non-Exandrian lore to try and predict what's going on in CR at this moment in time; while there's not a 1:1 overlap between other D&D worlds' lore and Exandria, some of the major relationships do stay the same. For example, Pelor, Ioun and Tharizdun are all linked in Exandria and in D&D "canon" (Pelor, Ioun and Tharizdun all looked into the Far Realm and saw mysterious secrets, secrets which drove Tharizdun to want to destroy the universe as per Gates of Madness (2010). Additionally, Tharizdun is deeply associated with the Abyss across both settings). Bear with me.

***Zehir, the Cloaked Serpent is also associated with darkness; however while the Lawbearer and the Platinum Dragon are associated with order there is no explicit god of order which was Vordo's other domain. The Chained Oblivion is explicitly described as a god of darkness in both the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (page 27) and the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (page 34).

References

1. Demonomicon (2010), pages 7-9. The wording of how the sealing took place is intentionally vague as it's a plot hook for DMs to expand on in their campaigns.

2. Titles and Tattoos, CR Campaign 2, Episode 84, from 14:00.

3. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020), page 27.

4. Matt's Discord post during Nick Marini's AMA (linked here).

5. Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, page 36.

6. The Endless Atheneum, CR Campaign 1, Episode 106, from 1:08:16.

7. Axiom Shaken, CR Campaign 3, Episode 43, at 3:02:19.

[laurelslegacy]

doodles

“You’re artistic?!” the voice was shocked, the carrier, shocked and quickly slamming the padges of the book shut. Sabine reaching- or tried to- over Zeb’s shoulder. “Oh no you don’t!!” she was persistent- like any Mandalorian.

Zeb’s longer reach helped. “I am NOT!” he hissed at her, his long reach however did not deter the young woman who simply used Zeb’s arm and his strength to half crawl over his arm and grab at the tattered covered spiral ring book and yank it from him. A roll and a foot kept him at bay as she flipped through the pages. “GIVE THAT BACK” He growled, this was something he suspected of Ezra- NOT Sabine.

“Zeb… these are beautiful.” the purity in her voice, paused the Lasat. She flipped the page and her fingers ran over the ink stained pages, sketches of the Ghost Crew, Kanan, Hera… HER even. Trained, refined, at her level- no….but the scratch marked portraits of her little family in everyday life was… beautiful. She knew Zeb worked with wood, clearly more of a sculpture than a fine artist… but these were wonderful. She flipped a few pages and saw the faces of Lasat sketched out and her eyes started to burn closing the sketch book as if she had been burnt and offered it out to Zeb. “I…. I’m sorry.”

Zeb looked heavy. Ears down and he took the book from Sabine trying to offer a smile that was willed to his face “Thanks fer that. ‘S all good.” he gave the lightest bump of his forehead to her’s and kept that willed smile.

[loth-creatures]

sabine and ezra are so audhd duo