Welcome to Sleeping With Ghosts, a project started due to our love for the characters Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo of the Star Wars: Expanded Universe (now known as Legends) -- as well as our love for their relationship, as crazy as it is (or was, due to Legends).
What started as just costumes, grew into a photo project, then a multimedia sort of project and we figured giving it a site -- as a hub/nexus for every part of the project -- was a good idea. For more information on the project and how it started, check out the about/contact section below. Hopefully you find something enjoyable here, whether you're a fan of Jacen Solo (or Darth Caedus), Tenel Ka Djo or both of them together. ♡
Sleeping With Ghosts is owned/maintained by zhobot,
was established July 2016 & was opened December 14, 2016.
One of the ideas we had (when the photo project started growing and evolving and mutating) was an Instagram for J/TK. Not necessarily in-character, but kind of in character. Sort of like a joint account for them on the Galaxy Far Far Away equivalent of Instagram -- and of course, if they were allowed to actually take a relationship public. There will be some official art edits thrown in there too and other photos from the project (costume/prop photos, etc.) and stuff of that sort.
It's much easier to show than explain, most likely. So below you'll find the six latest photos from it -- and if you'd like to look through the rest (full of Jacen & Tenel Ka related photos, aesthetic posts and other fun images) you can check out the whole Instagram at:
Who are we?: Nate & Heather. We're married, located on the East Coast of the U.S. and we started talking because Nate freaked out over a photo of Heather in a Little Sister (BioShock) costume.
What else do we like besides SW?: video games (Fallout, Silent Hill, Grand Theft Auto, Dishonored, BioShock), writing (Heather), coding (Nate), watching tv here and there (RuPaul's Drag Race, The Walking Dead, Steven Universe), making costumes aaaaaaand watching things on YouTube like Markiplier and the Game Grumps.
Just what IS Sleeping With Ghosts?: Over the years since we met, we've done a number of Jacen & Tenel Ka costumes. With all of these costumes came ideas for photos of them that were more than what we could take at a convention, so a photo project sort of thing was born. We mulled over that for a good while and then other schemes popped up for other creative things we could do that related to J/TK, like gifsets/photosets, "in-character" sort of photos, alternate universe albums, fanmixes -- then this whole thing was born!
So basically, SWG is somewhat of a haphazard thing with a bunch of disjointed visual, aural and written ideas, but we figured the link between them all was our love for these two characters, which led us to gathering all the work here in one place.
Where did the name come from?: It's the name of a song off of Placebo's 2003 album of the same name. The lyric "soulmates never die" stood out to us when this song came on during a brainstorming session. And we all know what happened to Jacen. :|
Why Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo?: Heather spent some of her most formative years reading about these two and absolutely fell in love with them. When she introduced Nate to the books and he enjoyed both characters as well, we realized that we shared some traits with them both solo (lolololol pun) and as a couple. For example -- just on the surface, Nate loves animals (he originally wanted to be a herpetologist and study reptiles when he was younger) as well as cheesy jokes and puns, while Heather is quiet, kind of aloof without really meaning to be, isn't too open with her feelings and has many kickass women in her family. Luckily (or HOPEFULLY?), there's no chance of Nate going Sith.
Where else can we be found?: You can find us at the links below!
One thing Heather does all the time is write. Original stories, fanfiction, all kinds of stuff. With fanfic -- Jacen/Tenel Ka fanfic specifically -- she likes to explore the what-if's concerning the two of them and their relationship. What if Tenel Ka went to Jacen's side? (Not that she ever would but WHAT IF?) What if Jaina hadn't killed Jacen? All kinds of stuff.
We took some of those ideas and created stories for them, and of course, we're working on photos for them too! Below you'll find short descriptions of the stories and following through will bring you to the words and images for that certain alternate universe.
(NOTE: the pages for these aren't done yet so they don't link anywhere at the moment!
They will be up soon -- keep an eye out on our instagram and such for news on them! :D)
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What if Allana got kidnapped by someone other than Caedus? Would he try to sway the Queen Mother to his side or save her alone? (We know TK would never ever go Sith, but it's fun to imagine, hehe.) | What if Jaina Solo caught his warning to Tenel Ka in time and spared Caedus instead of killing him? Could he return to who he once was? Or would Jacen's family and friends still think of him as a monster? | What if there had been no Darth Caedus and a relationship was able to blossom post-Dark Nest? Or even after the Yuuzhan Vong were defeated? Would it lead to a marriage -- Hapan traditions be damned and all? | What if these two were part of our present? Would Jacen text Tenel Ka photos of every single animal he's collecting? Probably. Would Tenel Ka need a serious lesson in emoticons and "air quotes"? Probably. |
Tumblr is a great place for photosets/gifsets and as we were discussing photo ideas, we started thinking about minimalist images relating to Jacen & Tenel Ka that could go together in a collage (or grid -- therefore, photoset!). We had ideas for moving things as well. We are by no means people who could make a halfway decent fanfilm, so we've been working on some gifsets instead! And since tumblr is a great place for both of those things, we've been putting up some stuff over at our tumblr -- the link below will take you to the tag for this project (meaning only the J/TK project items will pop up)!
This gallery is everything visual put together in one place -- everything on the instagram, everything on the tumblr, just everything. So if you stumbled on the site first, you can check it all out in the gallery! If you found us through instagram or tumblr you can see what else has been added to the project by checking out this gallery. If you want to stay updated on the project, the tumblr and instagram are the ways to go!
ANYWAYS, ENOUGH RAMBLING. Basically, here are all the project's images in one place!
Shortly after meeting, Heather told Nate about the Expanded Universe (he was a Star Wars fan already, but had never been too far past the movies) and he began to read all the books. Costumes came after that and while Nate enjoyed the fact that all of Jacen's were simple/jumpsuit-ish, he's now kind of wishing there was more variety in his wardrobe since we have all these visual ideas now.
One of the things we love about costuming characters from the books is the ability to take the description of an outfit, or even the feel/knowledge of a character, and turning it all into a costume. There's a creative freedom, but also faint boundaries so there's no going too crazy.
Below you'll find links to our respective costume pages for J/TK on our main website. There are photos & descriptions of all of them there! If you just want to see photos, you can head over to the costume section on this site's gallery - we've picked a few of our favorite photos of each costume to put there!
We listen to all kinds of music and sometimes that music gets into our brains re: Jacen, Tenel Ka, Caedus, Jacen/Tenel Ka, Caedus/Tenel Ka, Allana -- ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING relating to these two. So we thought we'd stick some mixes we put together concerning them here. Just another facet of this whole project! ;D
Below are a couple of our latest mixes, but you can check out other Jacen/Tenel Ka related ones in this collection!
Many things inspire us while we're working on ideas like this. We'll listen to music or ambient noise, Heather goes crazy on Pinterest -- all kinds of stuff. These are just a couple of the things that helped push us while we were working on all this madness.
Originally we had an inspiration board for this project on our zhobot pinterest account and Heather had separate inspiration boards on her personal account for Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka -- we've re-pinned them all to a new account and separated all the pins into boards depending on whether they're costume/photo/texture/etc. inspiration. Click the banner below to head over there!
Sometimes while we're brainstorming/writing/editing photos -- anything, we'll want something to listen to, but not something too distracting (like if we're playing music with lyrics, we'll sing them). So we go to this site called mynoise.net -- which has amazing sound generators! Below are some of our favorites to have on when we're working on this project or to have on to inspire things for this project! We've broken them up into categories of certain things we somewhat associate each generator with that relate to J/TK.
These should be self-explanatory, hehe. They work perfectly for Young Jedi Knights era fun (stuff at the academy, at least). Just picture tiny Jacen yelling about some animal he wants to catch and Tenel Ka sitting up in a tree watching him -- these both (played together or on their own) could be what it sounds like. :3
There were beach sound generators but we thought the Irish Coast one fit better due to the fact that it sounds like you're standing on a cliff and there's waves below you, as if you were looking out of the windows of Reef Fortress. :D As far as the Underwater generator, that one tends to remind us of the room Tenel Ka gave Jacen when they were staying at Reef Fortress after their training accident.
These are both awesome on their own, but way more fitting when you have them both open at the same time. With Sleeping Dragon as the ambience plus the sounds of Palm Garden over it -- this combo never fails to make us think of time spent by one or both of them in the gardens. (This combo is especially good for their chapter in The Joiner King!)
Any traveling, together or apart, or scenes like Tenel Ka shutting Caedus out and withdrawing support or the trip to Myrkr -- these two generators are perfect. Heather uses these for happy space travel fanfic stories too, no worries. The worlds/ideas that comes through with these two generators are amazing and we love these. (Side Note: Space Odyssey is a generator that is only open for people who donate to the site, but let us tell you right now -- mynoise.net is awesome. Besides inspiring us in a lot of ways, some of the generators help us to relax or to get to sleep easier. All of the generators they have are incredible. You should definitely check the rest of the site out if this is something you might like!)
While Osmosis is more Jacen and Northern Lights is more Tenel Ka, Twilight is a good mix of both of them. It's part spacey, part forlorn, part dreamy and it lends a somewhat nostalgic sound to what they were together and what they could have been had Caedus not been a thing. (Really, take that last one and think of Jacen, Tenel Ka and Allana being a family. Cue Heather gross sobbing.)
If you put Anamnesis and Mournful Chimes on together (they're both just as effective on their own too), you'll get something that reminds us of the downfall of their relationship and subsequent emotions Tenel Ka has to carry on with both Jacen and her father dead, and Allana being raised away from her. Saturn Rings has the same feel, but adds the galaxy behind it all and sounds almost somber with a underlying hint of a vast loss. (Aaaaaand cue Heather gross sobbing in the corner again.)
Here's a mess of things that didn't fit anywhere else on this page but we wanted to have a place for them somewhere due to that fact that they relate to Jacen and/or Tenel Ka! Or maybe Allana. Or maybe all of them?
This is a little section we wanted to include because over the years we've received gifts, commissioned people for things and stumbled across lots of J/TK stuff that is too beautiful not to share. We are very honored to know a good number of the talented people who have created these gorgeous pieces! ♡
Build-A-Bear Jacen & Tenel Ka:
Our amazing friend Erin used to work at Build-A-Bear and back in 2006 she made these for Heather for Christmas. We appreciate the attention to detail here, especially with TK's arm, and these will always be on display in our house because of how magical they are. THE OUTFITS TOO. It's all so perfect. ♡
Jacen Solo & His Amphistaff Gang:
This gorgeous picture was done by Lindsey and she used one of Nate's Traitor costume photos as reference. We have always wanted to get a photo of the costume like this now -- with more amphistaffs and in a Yuuzhan'tar-ish setting!
In His Shadow:
Another wonderful image by Lindsey, this piece is called In His Shadow and one of our Caedus & Queen Mother costume photos was used as the pose reference! Heather wishes she could get her hair to do that so hard. The squeeing noises we both made when we first saw this image were like a symphony of geeky glee -- we were so excited and touched to see a photo of our dumb faces as ref for an awesome image like this! ♡
Happy Family!:
Since Heather is an uber-nerd when it comes to obscure trivia about the Solo children, she was able to answer a question that fit that exact category on Facebook once. It was asked by a friend she made through/because of the Expanded Universe named Shea who is fabulous and knows of Heather's obsession with J/TK. The prize for answering the question first/right was an EU sketch of her choosing and of course she went with Jacen, Tenel Ka & Allana. Shea was not surprised. ;D
Insert Heather Screams Here:
The amazing ladies of White Hot Room (Bria & Lin ♡) got this piece commissioned from one of Heather's favorite artists, Shea (the same Shea from the image above!) for Christmas one year. Heather's always loved the way Shea portrays TK in her art, especially the fact that she never shys away from drawing Tenel Ka's left arm, and she has this picture hanging up in the living room (with the pencil sketch hanging in the bedroom ;D)~
Traitor:
Heather found this sketch card of Jacen Solo on ebay and instantly bid on it, in hopes of winning it and giving it to Nate as an anniversary gift. Not only was it a sketch card of Jacen, but it was based on an image of his Traitor costume as well! So it was double the A+++! She won it and it is now in a place of honor on a shelf in our house. The artist is Stephanie Swanger!
Don't let us near anything where you can create and customize a character because we will take it and run with it. Below are some of the Jacens, Tenel Kas and Allanas we've made here and there.
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Below are some links to other related sites and projects the two of us are part of, as well as the other Jacen & Tenel Ka related sites we run!
Fansites for Jacen, Jacen/Tenel Ka & Tenel Ka, respectively.
Tumblr counterparts for each can be found @: sylvan // petrichor // aecoreus
Heather's inspiration (aesthetics, costume ideas, etc.)
and RP blogs for Tenel Ka & Jacen.
