#death discussion

[curetapwater]

I think that when Sonic dies, he'll want his body (not enbalmed) to be placed in a no-frills hole in the ground to be reclaimed by the earth. He knows people will want fanfare and a bigass statue and stuff, and he knows he can't prevent that entirely, but he can at least request that his grave be about giving life back to the planet he loved.

[merry-death]

a family friend passed away this weekend and it really has me thinking about US funerals/death culture. Like, his wife's funeral is the first funeral I remember clearly (not the first I went to though) and she had been embalmed and just looked...wrong. she was old and had cancer and had been so thin and pale, but the last time I saw her she was still so bright and warm. but her body looked like it had been plumped up somehow, her wrinkles smoothed out, and the makeup they used several shades too dark/orange. It was unsettling, and her husband seemed unhappy about it too, and now that's the last memory any of us have of her face. I know there are embalmers who do good work and some people really want it, but it is often pushed on grieving families here as the only safe way to have an open casket (or in some states, the only legal way). But it isn't always necessary. And it's also not common enough for people to have their wishes for their bodies/funerals written down, so there's often a lot of guesswork for their families about the best way to honor the deceased. One of my grandfathers had a clear plan and it was easy for us to be sure everything was how he would want it. It really helped us get onto the actual grieving instead of worrying about getting things right for him. The other had no plans, so the days after his death were filled with the stress of his kids and wife debating and arguing over the best options. It was really clear to me that the kindest thing you can do for your loved ones is have a plan. And yet, people are still so weird about talking about what they want or writing it down or anything. Like, I asked my mom some time after her dad's funeral what she wants for herself and she freaked out about it. She's in her 60s and if Dad goes first or is unavailable for some reason, I'm her next of kin and already her emergency contact on everything, so I should know that. But despite helping to plan several funerals and knowing how hard it is on a family, she still won't talk about it and she doesn't have any legal documentation of what she wants either. It's legitimately concerning for me. I hope she has another 40 years with us, but if anything happens I will be a wreck and I would rather take the guesswork out of as much as possible. My aunt and uncle are the ones organizing the funeral for our family friend, and thankfully it seems like he had pretty clear plans so they aren't just guessing. I don't really have a point, other than to say know your rights for your death and the deaths of loved ones, get a plan in place, and have it written down. I highly recommend Caitlin Doughty/Ask A Mortician on YouTube as a resource

[reallystellacadente]

Hey!

Sorry to bug you. Is there a tag you use when you reblog visuals of death? Aaron’s protest was tragic and brave but I’ve been avoiding visuals of this and other graphic images on my blog for a long time. If there’s not a tag or you’d prefer not to have to tag, I understand and I can unfollow.

Thanks!

I am sorry, there was a tag on it but it might have gotten lost in the reblogosphere. Also, I am a bit stymied by Tumblr's workings on mobile; I rely on Xkit on my PC. I will try to remember to use "tw death" and "cw death" if there are depictions of death, especially if they are unblurred. Sadly, it will be needed.

[yaolmao]

Special Wammy’s Christmas @dnsecretsanta gift for @applestorms

[lostjudgmnt]

hi good morning. this post is the cain (my oc) post ever

[screenshot]

[end screenshot]

[id: a tumblr post by user meershweinchen1993 posted on january first that says: “came back from death wrong trope? you can easily avoid this by just never dying at all (stays alive wrong stays alive wrong stays alive wrong stays alive wr)”. end id.]

and im gonna talk about them and im not even putting it under a read more this time

so cain is my first ever dnd pc who’s life i’ve expanded way beyond the campaign ve was in (and i also have a billion aus with ver — including, coincidentally, the world i originally created ver for which doesn’t really feel like vis canon anymore 😅). ve’s a half-elf druid and shepherd who got roped into this big journey after an attack from a hill giant kind of scattered vis family and flock that originally started with like that pre-written “storm king’s thunder” campaign and then sort of spiraled out from that as our party got more well known in the world and stuff. but from the very beginning, cain didn’t think ve should have been alive. ve thought ve should have been killed by that giant. so ve was kind of “alive wrong” from the beginning.

but as the campaign progressed the party got more and more involved with the undead and people seeking out immortality through undeath and at the detriment of the living around them — including cain’s father, who tried to get cain to join him — and cain really resented the concept of cheating death and achieving immortality in a way that was unnatural hurt other people

but the craziest thing about cain is that, you know, ve’s a half elf and a druid — specifically, by the end of the campaign, an arch druid. which gives them an insanely long natural lifespan anyway? but during the course of their story, cain ends up basically being adopted by a goddess and becomes her holy champion and through her essentially becomes, like, an angel, or a demi-god, or something along those lines, and pretty much becomes immortal through that. so basically they achieve immortality in a way that doesn’t interfere with the forces of nature and doesn’t harm other people.

and they still hate it! they don’t really want it! they accepted the gift from their goddess and she is basically their mom they love her to bits and they do… i feel weird saying “serve” her considering they have a really personal relationship you know but their whole thing is that they carry out her wishes in the material plane essentially (she’s a goddess of natural cycles + life & death so essentially cain’s job is to help lost souls pass on and stuff). but ve’s alive wrong now because ve still hardly feels like ve should be alive in the first place. ve feels like there have been many times ve should have died but havent, and ve feels hypocritical being immortal after rejecting vis father’s path to immortality despite vis father’s path involving essentially destroying the material plane and feeding off of the living and cain’s just. here. and also didnt ask to be immortal in the first place. and because ve’s lived for eons and eons, repeatedly ve’s witnessed practically the entire lifespans of vis loved ones, and spends years and decades and centuries alone because ve’s alive and shouldn’t be.

anyway i dont know how articulate that is but. yea. cain my beloved

[askoverkill]

You're still not fully controlling your emotions. Go fishing

transcription below:

Heheheee… I am fishing.

You look like someone who is stressed. Would you like to fish for a little bit? It may help.

(Yeah, sure.) (You'll see if it does.)

(...You go through your usual ritual.) (Once done, you bask in the sunshine.)

(There's little sunlight left, with the sky falling.) (You need to take in what light you can...) (While you still can.)

(...You hate dying.) (It never gets any easier.) (It really...) (Felt like it was...)

(Final.)

I don't feel good.

...Sorry to hear that. (Text is skipped.)

(...) (Okay, you've fished enough.) (You didn't catch anything, but that's okay.)

[technically-human]

Confessional... things get complicated when you're a ghost.

@i-am-as-normal-as-you-are asked for, and this is a literal quote, "R!Edwin going to a confessional (full angst)" so yeah... full angst indeed.

[andstuffsketches]

Maybe not Impulse, But I think she would date Cissie

a glimpse into a possible future....

[starlightshore]

artwork I drew for my fanfic: Place Your Bets on Winning Hats, my "Loop won/Bad Ending" AU!

[glitterclan]

MOON 24 - Newleaf

FIRST PREVIOUS NEXT

[five-oh-first]

i think anakin should fall in canon as much as hayden does in the prequel bloopers. yeah he's an incredibly well trained jedi master. yes he has two left feet. these are not mutually exclusive.

[iphigeniacomplex]

Frustrated, Arya threw down the brush. “Bad wolf!” she shouted. Sansa couldn’t help but smile a little. The kennelmaster once told her that an animal takes after its master.

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

“You’re a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you’re as willful as your sister Arya.”

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

“My daughter often forgets her courtesies,” Eddard Stark said with a faint smile that softened his words.

—Arya III, A Game of Thrones

“A royal wheelhouse is no place for a wolf,” Sansa said. [...] She turned to walk off, but Arya shouted after her, “They won’t let you bring Lady either.” She was gone before Sansa could think of a reply, chasing Nymeria along the river.

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

Sansa dropped to her knees to wrap her arms around the wolf. They were all gathered around gaping, she could feel their eyes on her, and here and there she heard muttered comments and titters of laughter. “A wolf,” a man said, and someone else said, “Seven hells, that’s a direwolf,” and the first man said, “What’s it doing in camp?” and the Hound’s rasping voice replied, “The Starks use them for wet nurses,” and Sansa realized that the two stranger knights were looking down on her and Lady, swords in their hands, and then she was frightened again, and ashamed.

—Sansa II, A Game of Thrones

“No,” she said. “No, not Lady, Lady didn’t bite anybody, she’s good…”

—Eddard VII, A Game of Thrones

She woke murmuring, “Please, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, please don’t,” but there was no one to hear.

—Sansa VI, A Game of Thrones

“Send Arya away, she started it, Father, I swear it. I’ll be good, you’ll see, just let me stay and I promise to be as fine and noble and courteous as the queen.”

—Sansa III, A Game of Thrones

The queen had given her freedom of the castle as a reward for being good,

—Sansa V, A Game of Thrones

“Stop them,” Sansa pleaded, “don’t let them do it, please, please, it wasn’t Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can’t, it wasn’t Lady, don’t let them hurt Lady, I’ll make her be good, I promise, I promise…”

—Eddard VII, A Game of Thrones

“[...] What’s wrong with the girl?” Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.

—Bran VI, A Game of Thrones

She was a good girl, and always remembered her courtesies.

—Sansa VI, A Game of Thrones

[charmwasjess]

That One About the Temple Clones AU

Here's an underexplored and juicy plot point in the prequels that I can't stop thinking about! Because Sifo-Dyas was killed so early in the new canon timeline of the creation of the clones, with Dooku impersonating him to handle the subsequent details, we don’t even know exactly what he intended the clone army to be.

I think there’s even an argument to be made that Sifo-Dyas intended the clones to be culturally Jedi. Raised and trained in the Jedi Temple(s), learning Jedi skills and ways of life, growing up in a shared community alongside the Jedi. The clones serving not as an emergency button to hit in case of war, but as a support to the overstretched, under resourced Jedi Order in an increasingly violent, chaotic galaxy, one that might prevent the war he foresaw from ever even happening.

To begin, I’ll briefly touch on the galactic situation immediately before The Phantom Menace. Time and time again, we’re given a picture of the Jedi Order that is being stretched to its limit. All across the galaxy, Jedi temples such as the ones we see operating in the High Republic era in the Acolyte, are being shut down because the Jedi just can’t staff them. The novel The Living Force, set immediately before TPM, deals with the repercussions of these shut downs for the people living in those sectors - destabilization, a vacuum where the power hungry and corrupt can come into the space left and make life awful for the people. Problems arise, these systems go to the Republic for help, the Republic can't help due to bureaucratic red tape and lack of Jedi resources, and this creates more bad feelings about the Jedi and a great environment to grow the Separatist cause.

"I always heard so much about the Jedi. I never saw one, but they told me that was because you saved people -- and then you left!" - The Living Force

Enter Sifo-Dyas. As a member of the Jedi Council in this era, he would have overseen dozens of these painful but unavoidable closures. More, he was trained by Lene Kostana, a High Republic era Jedi, who remembered the golden age of the Jedi, all of these Jedi outposts, temples, and cultural centers being open and thriving, and surely filled her Padawan’s head with these stories. When Sifo-Dyas foresaw a coming cataclysmic war that would destroy the Jedi Order, it's not hard to see where he might have made a connection between the pervasive problem that was a lack of Jedi resources, and the galaxy falling further into darkness. In fact, it's exactly what happens in the prequels with a little push from the Sith.

The Living Force novel tells us outright that Sifo-Dyas’s original plan before deciding on the clones was to use his role as a Jedi Seeker to fill the Jedi Order with as many new Jedi as possible to counter the coming threats:

“(Sifo-Dyas) was always in a big damn hurry. Like the Republic would end if he didn’t swell the ranks.” - The Living Force 

Wow, Even Piell, that line aged like milk, buddy!

 Ki-Adi Mundi frowned. “Indeed, sometimes those he brought to us were not even viable candidates.”  - The Living Force 

So, Sifo-Dyas was originally trying to bring as many kids into the Order as possible, and didn’t particularly care if they were very Force sensitive. An intriguing detail, when considering how closely he might have imagined the non-Force-sensitive clones to work in Jedi roles.

Interestingly, he didn’t actually abandon that “swell the ranks” plan - he got his ass fired, so he couldn’t bring any more Jedi in the conventional way. Sifo-Dyas is in a desperate situation here, he feels he's running out of time, and he needs to get as many people into the Jedi Order as quickly as possible. I think you might see where I'm going with this.

“The future should remain unseen, but unfortunately, Sifo-Dyas has little choice in the matter.”  -Lene Kostana, Dooku Jedi Lost

We know he arranged the initial order for the clones, but not how he intended to use them, or saw their role, or even if he would have agreed with Jango as the DNA donor, since that part came in from Dooku.  If Sifo-Dyas, lifelong Jedi and true believer in the Order, was creating something to help defend his people in their darkest hour, it stands to reason that he might look within his own culture for their training, instead of outside of it.

Did he see them as a secret weapon, a surprise help in the hour of greatest need, as they would ultimately function as on Geonosis? Or did he envision the clones being raised with Jedi involvement on every level of their development, growing into keepers of the peace to fill those hundreds of empty temples and outposts and restabilize a galaxy sliding toward darkness?

I think an important clue that supports the latter argument is that as Sifo-Dyas is literally falling out of the sky to his death, he is busy trying to get a message to the Council that he ordered the clones via a recording: 

I've seen a vision of the future that I feel warrants an army. You've disagreed with me, but I felt I had no choice. Therefore I have ordered one: a clone army from the Kaminoans. Something must be done, and I made that decision. - Sifo-Dyas, Force Collector

He's hardly trying to keep the (currently embryonic!) clones a secret here. He seems to think he's done his part and the Council has no choice but to take it from there, and follow through with his unmentioned plan. He has delivered the needed personnel. And bear in mind, Sifo-Dyas did not expect his death to be a 10 year old mystery. He seems to have spent his very last breaths protecting Sillman and therefore leaving a witness to everything that happened. His last words are literally “Come find me!” 

These are not the actions of a man who has set his plan into perfect motion and a magic army will appear just at the right time in ten years. This is a man who is facing his unexpected death and realizing that he needs to tell the Council, who disagreed with him but he clearly still trusts, what he did because he won't be there to handle the details himself. It's almost poignant.

-

I worried about making this post at all because I’m not actually interested in blorbo apologism. Sifo-Dyas’s story is much more interesting if he is a good man forced to go to desperate, awful lengths to keep the apocalypse from happening. Whatever he intended the clones to be, it ended in Order 66; in a way, it doesn't even matter.  And yet, I think there’s something compelling there too, and I think canon gives us just enough - at least make an argument for a culturally-Jedi clone army what-if.

[smallsinger5901]

how often do you think Light went back to L’s grave? Was it a ritual for him? A weekly, monthly, yearly date he set aside for sitting by him. Gloating, or idly chatting. Never admitting that it was mourning. Never admitting that he was lonely. (It’ll be lonely, won’t it? Isn’t it?)

or did he never even allow himself to think about it? Just pushing it at arms length, forcing himself to look away when he goes past the cemetery, pointedly not searching between the headstones for an single unnamed cross. Equally as lonely.