Agape - Blog Posts

Through the Glass

independent_variables

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: CT-6922 | Dogma & CT-5385 | Tup, CT-5385 | Tup & Original Character(s), CT-6922 | Dogma & Original Character(s) Characters: Original Characters, CT-5385 | Tup, CT-6922 | Dogma Additional Tags: Haircuts, Hair Washing, tup gets his hair done for the first time, Anti-Clone Prejudice (Star Wars), briefly, Developing Friendships, clone and civilian friendships, this OC is mostly an auntie Series: Part 3 of Coruscanta a'den mhi, Vode an. Summary:

The one with the tattoo saw her first. His eyes widened, and he squeezed the other’s shoulder. “Hey. We’ve got to go.”

“Oh!” He whirled around— hair fanning out so she could see there were indeed some lovely curls in the underlayer— and backed away, hands up and open, smiling at her the same way she smiled at upset clients. “Sorry, ma’am. We thought you were closed. We didn’t touch your window, we didn’t mean to disturb anything. We’ll leave now.”

Before she could think twice about it, she asked, “What do you usually do with your hair?”

***

Tup gets a haircut.

—

My new fic for @starwarsalltypesoflove week! This is mostly Agape, just being kind for the sake of being kind.

This event has been lovely, I am excited to see what else is shared <3

Sketches of Those the Empire Demanded You Forget

In the face of Imperial cruelty, an artist remembers its victims. Written for Fandom Empire Prompt Tables 2024 - Prompt: "Keeper" and Star Wars: All Types of Love Week (@starwarsalltypesoflove) - Prompt: "Agape"

As you can probably tell, I don't like coming up with names for characters. I will continue to avoid doing so as much as possible.

He’d never actually met a Jedi.

He’d heard plenty of them, of course – living on Coruscant, even on the distant lower levels, it’d be hard not to have heard any tales of them, true or not. There were always rumors, good and bad. Jedi had busted a trafficking ring three levels down, they said. Jedi had used their terrible sorcery to trick and rob some honest workers, they said. They saw a Jedi catch some kid falling from a speeder far above, they said. No one knew that guy who’d won the last street race, he must’ve been a Jedi in disguise, they said.

But he’d never met one, not directly.

He’d seen one, once.

His neighbors had had a child – well, they had had several children, actually, but one of them had been...different. And somehow, that family had managed to contact the Jedi Temple, or the Jedi had known, somehow, and either way, a Jedi had shown up.

His neighbors had been so proud that their little girl had gone off to be a Jedi, even as some people scoffed and muttered comments of “must be glad for less mouths to feed, I suppose.”

They hadn’t taken the news well.

The Empire had taken their objections even worse.

CONTINUED ON AO3

and the force is with us

independent_variables

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: CC-4477 | Thire, CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives, CT-7567 | Rex, CT-6116 | Kix, Original Clone Trooper Character(s) Additional Tags: The Force, Force-Sensitive Clone Troopers (Star Wars), Fix-It, Not Canon Compliant, the force is musical because i said so, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, basically just an exuse to write clones being force sensitive badasses, and taking control of their futures, Clone Trooper-centric (Star Wars) Series: Part 1 of Bind Summary:

If he let himself think about it, Thire could tell where each stroke of the lightsaber would land seconds before it did.

He was scared to let himself think about it.

But.

“Clones you may be,” General Yoda had said. “But the Force resides in all life forms.”

—

Another older one I’m posting for @starwarsalltypesoflove week! This one is very much agape again, with the Force and the way the Force loves.

Agape, unconditional love born out of compassion for your fellow sentient being.

For @starwarsalltypesoflove, in honor of @amarcia 's ocs, whom I love with all my heart.

something inside you is singing

independent_variables

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus Characters: Ezra Bridger, The Force (Star Wars), Kanan Jarrus Additional Tags: Homelessness, Accidental Use of the Force (Star Wars), Young Ezra Bridger, Pre-Canon, ezra growing up homeless and unknowlingly force sensative, and how that might have played out, kanan doesn’t really show up until the end, why don’t they have a relationship tag for the force smh Summary:

If he thought about it hard enough, Ezra could hear something inside him singing. Just a simple tempo, beating in time with his heart. A tune set to the rhythm of the universe.

But he didn’t like to think about it too hard.

—

This is an older fic that focuses on how Ezra interacts with the Force growing up. It’s enough about how the Force loves Ezra that I felt comfortable sharing for Star Wars: All Types of Love week, for Agape.

Today is the day! Welcome, everyone, to Star Wars: All Types of Love week! It's time to start sharing our creations!

To share with us, use the tag SWATOLW and/or @ us, and please tag what type of love your work is celebrating! We'll be adding all shared posts to a queue.

Happy posting! We are excited to celebrate with you.

Hi @reconstructwriter !

We are glad to have your attention and happy you're feeling excited about this!!! We're excited too!

"Love of god" is the love of an unknowable, higher power, exercised with spirituality, through meditation. That is Agape. It totally counts! And we're excited about what you may come up with this!

In Star Wars, this is definitively the Force 😉

THE SEVEN TYPES OF LOVE

The human existence is vast and rich. Feelings, in particular, seem endless and varied. How can one define all that encompass what humans mean when they say love?

Philosophers in ancient Greece decided we could not. Which is why they decided to specify the type of love they referred to when they said love by categorizing them into seven major types.

Eros – Passionate, Romantic Love

Philia –Friendly, Affectionate Love

Storge –Familial, Unconditional Love

Agape – Selfless, Universal Love

Ludus – Playful, Flirtatious Love

Pragma – Dutiful, Committed Love

Philautia – Love of Self

1. Eros – Passionate Love

Eros is passionate love, and everything we think of when we think of the Hollywood version of love. To the ancient Greeks, this physical, desirous love could be dangerous. Powerful and possessive, it is easy to lose control of. Relationships built solely on eros tend to be short-lived, as passion is transient by nature.

It represents the love found in sexual intimacy and romance.

2. Philia –Friendly Love

Philia is a friendly love. It is shared goodwill. A friendship that is not only associated with mutual benefit but also with companionship, dependability, and trust.

Real friends seek together to live truer, fuller lives by relating to each other authentically and learning each other’s limitations. They help each other become their best selves.

Essentially, you can think of Philia as the type of love where you simply want the best for another person. The ancient Greeks thought it was even more precious than Eros, the foundation of the best kind of friendship.

3. Storge – Familial Love

Storge is the unconditional love between kin, in particular the love parents have for their children. More broadly, storge is the fondness born out of familiarity or dependency.

It is defined by unconditional acceptance and sacrifice. Compared to eros and philia, it is much less contingent on our personal qualities.

People in the early stages of a romantic relationship often expect unconditional storge, but find only the need and dependency of eros. If they are lucky, given enough time and care, eros can mutate into storge or philia.

4. Agape – Selfless Love

Agape is compassionate love. It is an empathetic, selfless love for others that includes a love for other humans, for nature, or for a higher power.

It doesn’t depend on familiarity. Instead, it is the love for the stranger or the unknowable. Agape has links to altruism, which is understood as an unselfish, genuine concern for the welfare of others. It is a love that expects absolutely nothing in return, and in turn, just makes you feel good.

A lot of people consider agape to be a spiritual love, expressed through meditation, nature, intuition, and spirituality.

5. Ludus – Playful Love

Ludus is playful love. Flirtatious, seductive and non-committal—Ludus is all about having fun. The point of this love is the experience itself rather than the feelings.

Ludus is evident at the beginning of a relationship, when we feel full of play, teasing, and excitement.

Dancing, seducing, will-he-won't-he and all that jazz, it can lead to a one-night stand, a no-strings-attached fling, or a long and casual relationship. As long as there is a sense of play and levity from both parties, it is ludus, an uncomplicated sort of love.

6. Pragma – Dutiful Love

Pragma is a practical love founded on reason, duty and the couple’s long-term interests. Sexual attraction takes a back seat in favor of shared goals, compatibility, and "making it work." The higher common purpose is served, rather than the individual's desires.

In the simplest of terms, it is long-term and works thanks to constant nurturing. It is seen in long-term marriages and friendships. Respect is fundamental, as is serving the purpose of the union. Its qualities are commitment, endurance, companionship, and sharing similar hopes for the future.

This type of love is an accepting love that matures as the couple spends year after year together. It can be associated with storge or philia. A healthy pragma is sincere, patient, mature, and in all honesty, quite rare (and therefore special).

7. Philautia – Self Love

Finally, philautia is self-love. It is based on a sense of self-worth. It can be healthy or unhealthy.

Unhealthy self-love is akin to hubris. In Ancient Greece, people could be accused of hubris if they placed themselves above the gods, or, like certain modern politicians, above the greater good. Philosophers believed that hubris was the enemy and led to destruction.

Healthy self-love, on the other hand, is akin to self-esteem, which is our cognitive and also emotional appraisal of our own worth. More than that, it is the matrix through which we think, feel, act, and reflect on the way we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world.

In everyday language, "self-esteem" and "self-confidence" tend to be used interchangeably. However, self-esteem and self-confidence do not always go hand in hand. In particular, it is possible to be highly self-confident and yet to have profoundly low self-esteem, as is the case, for example, with many performers and celebrities.

Of all of the different kinds of love, this one is often the most challenging for people. However, it is foundational to the other types of love. Ancient Greeks saw philautia as the necessary love that made it possible to give and receive love from other people. We cannot give what we don’t have. And so, we cannot love others if we don’t love ourselves first.

Philautia, therefore, is something like self-compassion. Much like we show affection and love to other people, it is important to show that affection to ourselves, to be compassionate to one’s self and able to forgive.

Greek philosophers believed that true happiness could only be achieved when one had unconditional love for themselves, which makes it possible to love others truly in turn.

The Seven Loves

In closing, there is, of course, a kind of porosity between the seven types of love, which seep and pass into one another. Some philosophers believed love aimed at beautiful and good things, because the possession of beautiful and good things is happiness, and happiness is good and beautiful in itself. 

Of all good and beautiful things, the best, most beautiful, and most dependable is truth or wisdom. It teaches us about ourselves, about others, and about life, which help us make better choices through this greater understanding and therefore live better lives.

We tend to agree.

Love, in all its forms, is one of the most powerful emotions in the world.

Note: 

Our sources are below in order of credibility, but this exploration of the different types of love is in our own words and based on both our reading and our own understanding of the concepts. 

Early Greek philosophy

Platonic Love

Love like a Greek: the 7 loves according to Ancient Greek philosophy

These Are the 7 Types of Love

7 Types Of Love (from Greek)

What Are the 7 Types of Love?