#inevitablehe

clicks acryllics how do i start with this. opinion change pending because it's a part of star wars i haven't engaged with much on a meta level but let's give it the old college try.

i don't think he knows anything at all about his mother. i don't think the lars family know much about her, having only met her the once, and i don't think obi-wan is telling him anything about her either. i doubt that owen would allow it when his whole schtick is keeping luke ignorant for his own sake. which is not a bad tactic, let me be clear, when your opponent can read minds. the less luke literally knows, the safer he is. see how quickly leia is put in danger when luke simply has that fact sitting in his brain. i think he's going to hear about anakin simply because he lives on tatooine, and because his grandmother was around on the lars farm for a time ( canonically ), so they have to feed him false information. but any questions about his mother can be turned away with empty phrases and the fact that they didn't really know her. they're not her family in the same way they're anakin's family via shmi. bail and breha knew padme in a way that owen and beru never did. they can't and won't provide luke with the same information the other two could provide leia ( and bail and padme working together means leia having information on padme, especially as a fellow senator, makes perfect sense and wouldn't raise as many red flags as a random farmer from tatooine being obsessed with a nabooian politician ).

luke also doesn't seem to want for a mother figure the way he does for a father. i'm not on board with the reading that owen was abusive, but i do think that he was discouraging. again, he has good reason to be -- he really does have luke's safety as his number one priority. what luke sees, however, is a person who seems to disagree with him on principle. being an impulsive teenager, that doesn't sit well with him. beru, on the other hand, reads as supportive, or at the very least, not discouraging. she speaks to owen on his behalf, is inquisitive but not demanding, and doesn't push back against luke the way owen does. beru is more a mother to luke than owen is a father.

i do want to step back for a moment and address the meta reason for this, which is that george lucas did not really care much. i could say that the sweeping arthurian romance of the prequels works to rectify this, but honestly, he simply did not give a fuck about whoever luke's mother was when he was writing the ot. if there is evidence to the contrary, i'd love to see it, but reading the archives and early interviews, i haven't seen anything that would suggest there was more going on than simple neglect. padme was not necessary for the story because the children had already been born; she was a vague conduit by which vader had reproduced, beautiful and kind but sad. and that's not abnormal for mothers in media.

i guess i don't go out of my way to rectify this because i like to sit with this idea. i don't want to handwave it and say, no, luke definitely knew everything about padme and she was really important to him. i think maybe when he was younger he did ask about her, but his guardians had nothing to give him. they made up nonsense about anakin and made no effort to find out more about padme for luke's sake because it would have put him in more danger, and also because... she just didn't matter. and that's a tragedy to me, that luke simply has no real connection with his mother until post-canon. i'm happy to explore that there, and i have my cw au in which i think he and padme have a very important relationship. i just like... don't want to sweep this neglect under the rug because it feels more rewarding to me as a writer to explore it.

She had sat with a marble sort of stillness as it was decided around her what was to be done about the assassin. She was not the only Senator to be so targeted, and the growing threat of what her Prophets and Mystas declared a violation and abomination towards Shriaya's holy light was only growing. How many other people within the Senate had already been replaced? Even now, regulations regarding clones were still limited and stuck within the law making process.

The Lady of The First Phase had made it a royal declaration to have Padme relocated for her safety. They had been trying to sway her to come home to Naboo, where they would see to her safety in Theed, but Padme had refused. She had reminded them of Va Ti's fire and what further harm could be brought into the holy courts if an offworld assassin came into them.

There was much of the hushed agreements and "of course, your eminence" as they resumed their prayer. Even off world, she was flanked by some form of Shriaya's religion and her devoted followers. the formation of the monarchy had stemmed from the growing popularity of this religion after all.

They still believed she was their god incarnate.

The Jedi and their services had been so thusly requested because they, too, held philosophies that in peace time, compared to Naboo's religion at it's core.

The rest had been left up to the Jedi to keep further secrecy. There was so much to be done. She still held herself in that stillness, internalizing what fear was growing.

She'd been in exile before, but now...

"I don't know what's important." she whispered, standing in her closet. She needed to take something with her... but it couldn't look as if she had fled. she looked over at the other in the doorway of the closet. Her new protector as she had overheard.

"You must think I'm being ridiculous."

Send me 📏 (ruler) + your muses height and I'll compare them to mine!

she hadn't been quick enough, this time around but at least the droids and what r2d2 contained was safe. this was her mission, and not one she failed at least. the rest ... well, she'd deal with it as it came. she didn't know for how long she has been in that cell, flanked by two stormtroopers but the wait was starting to make her feel uneasy. the princess could only hope that the message would reach obi-wan kenobi in time. she didn't forget the promise he made in what felt like a lifetime ago.

that if she ever needed his help -- he'd come. up until then, she was fine on her own. nothing that required the help of a retired jedi, anyway. this time though ... knowing just who the devastator belonged to, she was aware she wouldn't be as lucky. darth vader. a man she never really met, even if she had memories of dark cloak back when she had to tag along with her father to coruscant for these important galas.

she knew of him, but never talked to him. with reasons. not that she was aware of the actual ones -- something none of her adoptive parents ever shared with her. when the man, was he even one?, made his entrance ... it was as if nothing but him mattered. his presence, as dangerous as it was powerful, almost knocking her breathless but she collected herself pretty quickly. even enough to make a quip of her own. ❝ do you make all your prisoners wait that long or is that only reserved for me, lord vader? ❞

ok but! in my head not only are anakin and kara siblings from across the stars, they are twins. honestly, there are so many things of varying levels of importance that come together to give the overwhelming impression that they are brother and sister, i would not be surprised if it's some kind of cosmic joke the force has a hand in.

on a physical level they obviously look like they are related. with their blonde hair and their big eyes, many have looked at kara and ani and actually mistaken them for siblings. which, well i can only speak for kara, but she's certainly never corrected it. not to mention they share a birthday (fixing this was the single best thing i have ever done on this blog) and while i imagined kara as older in our short-lived arthurian au, and she does radiate big-sister energy often when it comes to anakin, i actually believe that kara and anakin are of similar if not the same age.

this of course would be nothing, except for the fact that they often appear as doubles of each other, or a complimentary pair or mirror image, and are scarily attuned to each other.

both are forthright, passionate individuals — and passion is often at the forefront of their personalities as opposed to the steadiness of many jedi. they are emotional people, though anakin may have more tendency than kara to wear his heart on his sleeve. they share a number of fears: the loss of loved ones, powerlessness, and themselves. both have ties to their family beyond what is considered the norm by jedi, and are frowned upon for it. and both experience familial loss in a way that affects them deeply. and while kara is of course not nearly as powerful as anakin in the force, they both feel the force in particularly intense ways.

both have an innate desire for freedom. while i could never conflate kara's experiences with anakin's of actual slavery, the conflict on her homeworld weighs heavy on her psyche and everything that has stemmed from it — her being given to the jedi and the nature of her padawanship — has contributed to kara feeling a lack of autonomy that can in some ways mirror anakin's.

both have complicated relationships with their masters. and you could see it as either coincidence or force-ordained that are members of different branches of the same jedi lineage.

both feel a need for revenge that they do ultimately act on — anakin with the tusken raiders, and kara with the llaikyr that killed beira (which in someways she is also a projection of her desire to kill those responsible for her family's deaths as well).

both have trust issues, and both tend toward personal loyalty over moral rightness. and once she does trust someone, while kara may not be as open with her affection, she is earnest and devoted like anakin.

and many other points that i could be here for the next hundred years making.

as to their actual relationship — as a child kara was very solitary; she didn't bond easily with the other initiates and was naturally introverted. until anakin came to the temple. i think even at the young age at which they met, kara recognised in her soul that anakin was a kindred spirit almost immediately, whether you want to say she was guided by the force or not. and from that moment she attaches herself to him (much to beira's joy and consternation). they have a genuine, sibling-type relationship; full of unconditional love, whatever their differences. kara has a deep, almost devout belief in anakin — while she doubts herself she is equally doubtless of anakin. she's horrendously protective of him, and would shoulder any burden she could for him, while also feeling that he is one of the single people in the galaxy she could confide her own burdens in.

「   ASK MEME :   HOW’S MY PORTRAYAL?   」

Here, two simultaneous truths. One: Luke had hardly left his father's side since the Death Star II. Even after Anakin hadn't strictly needed him anymore -- not in the way he'd needed him on the flight back, or the week after, bolstering him in the Force, tethering him to his body, healing all that he could heal even though he didn't quite know how and fumbled through it -- Luke had remained, anxious to go too far. Perhaps he thought the Alliance might surreptitiously try to rid themselves of their ( former ) enemy, if he wasn't looking; certainly, more than a few of them had the motive, and Luke was kind, but he wasn't stupid. Or perhaps he felt their bond like a cord, and feared that, if he strayed, it might snap, and he would lose his father forever.

Two: for all this time spent, they had hardly spoken. Luke was, more often than not, immersed in the Force, silent and focused, doing his best to guide what bits of Anakin's original body remained into a position where they weren't being crushed, or punctured, and could actually serve him. When he wasn't doing that, they tended to sit in silence. There was so much work to be done after the Emperor's death that when Luke wasn't buried in the Force, he was buried in a datapad, trying to help however he could. It was necessary -- and it gave him an excuse not to breach the space between them. He had found himself, suddenly and unexpectedly, a bit shy.