benevolentbridgetroll:

vrabia:

the guardians of the whills were a little bit smug about not being jedi. but only, like, a smidge. not enough to compromise any aspirations of sainthood, because no one likes a stuck-up asshole. but they were. a little bit smug about not being jedi. 

the thing is, this genteel sense of superiority wasn’t exactly unfounded. the whills were an ancient dwindling faith while the jedi were at their zenith. the jedi were even searching for the chosen one! who would bring balance! to the force! whose light and dark sides were out of whack for some reason oH RIGHT it’s because the light side/dark side thing is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT

of course the temple elders were staunch supporters of religious diversity and besides, the jedi got the ‘omnipresent energy that surrounds and binds all living things’ fundamentals right it’s just the light side/dark side thing that is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT. but hey, when you get right down to it, it’s a bit of an antiquated notion in line with what most sentients believe about the dichotomy of good and evil, and not actually harming anyone in practice right now. the jedi are actually trying to do good and succeeding most of the time, while the sith are de facto extinct, so it’s fine. not like someone’s going to give each an army and make them sort it out anytime soon. 

right?

ha.

(chirrut imwe is thought to have coined the term ‘force of others’ during the imperial occupation of jedha. he allegedly defined it as ‘the force but everything sucked so much and people needed something more tangible to hold on to against the tide of darkness and despair and i thought, hey! why not eachother. also i was severely depressed for a while and almost neglected myself into an early grave until the neighborhood granny committee sent over a representative who cuffed me on the ear and made me eat some soup and that’s how i got the idea’) 

fast forward: luke skywalker has only like 3 weeks of formal lightsaber training, tops, and all the kindness in his heart at his disposal to try and rebuild the jedi order. he fails. and in a way, he was always going to fail at what he thought he was meant to do. ironically, he actually got the ‘by itself the force is neither good nor evil but an instrument that can be used for either’ bit right. where luke went terribly wrong is he thought that there was some good in everyone. he’d seen anakin skywalker cast away vader in his last moments to redeem himself and so, luke thought, no one was beyond saving. no one was beyond hope. no one was so steeped in darkness that there wasn’t even a single spark of light in them. 

a few months into his exile on self-recrimination island, an unseen presence tries to get luke’s attention by force-dropping a kettle on his foot. you’re here because you realized you can’t fix something that was broken for so long. it’s not a voice luke recognizes. not so much a voice anyway, as the feeling of someone very impatient trying to be very patient and finding luke particularly slow. not obi-wan then, he’s pretty sure. 

he ventures a ‘yes?’

you worry that if you try again you’ll be forced to repeat this cycle and bring more pain and darkness to the galaxy.

‘i guess. who are–’

what if i told you you didn’t have to.

‘…….go on?’

the force ghost of chirrut imwe materializes through the power of sheer vindicated glee. 

listen. 

#the force ghost of baze malbus materializes a second later through the power of spousal exasperation; the 5th lesser known universal force#a spin-off episode of my favorite ongoing saga ‘everything would have been different if chirrut lived & trained impressionable young luke#instead of obi-wan and the deception frog’ via vrabia