Anghraine

Your title is how I feel about this comment. Just wow, I completely squealed when I read this. Thaaaanks! <3

You made her awesome and epic and winful!

Heeeh. I was worried that she was too OOC, and then it was "...lol, this is a reimagining ANYWAY I can do whatever I want!" So that was the idea.

And your Leia! Who shoots Force lightning!!!! That could not be more awesome if it tried!

:D :D :D :D That may have been the very first scene I wrote in the whole story. Because I did want her to fail (I get kind of annoyed with the "Leia is better than Luke in ALL WAYS and perfectly perfect" that you see sometimes), in a creepy Dark Sidey way that wasn't Luke's more...militaristic failure, I guess, but specific to her, and still kind of awesome. So, Force-lightning!

And Anakin who is... "Papa's going to make everything right for you" or words to that effect and that's why he turned and oh how perfect!

Pretty much, yes. I mean, there were a lot of reasons, but Padmé getting murdered proved that the galaxy wasn't safe for anyone, let alone his little boy, and it was the last straw. :( But I was surprised in ROTS that saving their child seemed little more than an afterthought to Anakin, considering how obsessively fixated he was on Luke's mere existence later. This was maybe overkill, but it worked better for me. And the furniture. I don't even know where that came from.

And Anissa is... I want more of her!!!! Yes, please!

Ooh, cool. The realization that it was going to be Anakin/OFC and then that it was going to have actual Anakin/OFC scenes was kind of NOOOOO. But I rather like Arissa, so I hope other people do too.

I have no words for what an accomplishment that is!

I totally get this. The PT made me retroactively hate even OT Yoda, so rehabilitating him in my own eyes was a definite motivation here. Where he's still made mistakes -- even some of the same mistakes, and some that he didn't -- but... still basically admirable?

Because... okay, I'm an irnan fangirl, but also and more generally I'm just a fan of Leia as Vader's kid.

OMG, I love irnan's fics. And meta. And everything. And I ... I mean, in terms of what we're given, the Luke-Anakin relationship is much more compelling for me. Because Leia seems just an afterthought. But the hints we do get, mostly in ANH, where it's like there's this antagonistic respect, it is interesting, so I wanted to keep that even though I didn't make them family here. But there is a vaguely familial-type thing with Padmé the loyal Imperial as Anakin's best friend and Vader keeping quiet about Leia for her sake.

Luke's thought about how his father is Obi-wan's star pupil and how kriffed-up the Jedi were (mercenaries selling their swords and so forth)

ooh, thank you. I've wondered how much of Vader's epic rationalizing he picked up at Obi-Wan's knee, so it was fun to play with that here. And yeah, the Jedi were totally messed-up -- these ones were less about the child abuse, I think, and more about the mercenary...ing, but still, wtf, guys. And we've known Obi-Wan was "General Kenobi" since 1977, so-- yeah.

And thanks about the dialogue, too! I wangsted for hours over it, so I'm so glad it sounded right. Threepio was easy enough, but Yoda and Vader were like GAH OMG.

I have heretical opinions about the Dark and Light sides of the Force.

I get the feeling mine are too. Namely, there's no such thing as the Light Side, per se -- just the Force and this cancerous imbalance on it. And I don't think there's any such thing as "Dark Side powers" or whatever either, which is why Luke can Force-choke people like he does in canon, and Leia can shoot lightning all she wants, and they're still not Dark Siders. (Just a little ambiguous, ha.)

I see it more as a matter of where they get the power, and in what emotional state, than what specific technique they're using. Plenty of non-dark Jedi do some very morally questionable shit and it doesn't necessarily bring them closer to the Dark Side unless they're all ragey and uncontrolled when they do it.

Anyway, in summary, this is kriffing amazing and I love it epically and yeah.

Awww, thanks so much. This was awesome! And I've probably said it like a dozen of times, but I'm so glad you liked it. <3